Algorithm engine for use in a pattern matching accelerator

ABSTRACT

A pattern matching accelerator (PMA) for assisting software threads to find the presence and location of strings in an input data stream that match a given pattern. The patterns are defined using regular expressions that are compiled into a data structure comprised of rules subsequently processed by the PMA. The patterns to be searched in the input stream are defined by the user as a set of regular expressions. The patterns to be searched are grouped in pattern context sets. The sets of regular expressions which define the pattern context sets are compiled to generate a rules structure used by the PMA hardware. The rules are compiled before search run time and stored in main memory, in rule cache memory within the PMA or a combination thereof. For each input character, the PMA executes the search and returns the search results.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to the field of data processing, and moreparticularly relates to a pattern matching accelerator (PMA) and relatedsub-systems for use in high-speed pattern matching applications.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

There is thus provided in accordance with the present invention, analgorithm engine for searching pattern contexts in an input characterstream, comprising control logic operative to receive pattern contextsearch commands from a data engine, one or more physical pattern searchlanes, each physical pattern search lane comprising one or more patternsearch engines, pattern search engine operative to execute said patterncontext search commands, and a local results processor (LRP) associatedwith each pattern search lane for assisting said pattern search enginesin searching complex pattern contexts.

There is also provided in accordance with the present invention, analgorithm engine for searching pattern contexts in an input characterstream, comprising a plurality of physical pattern search lanes, eachphysical pattern search lane comprising, control logic operative toreceive pattern context search commands and state information from acommand unit, a classifier operative to generate a class valueassociated with each input character to be scanned, a plurality ofpattern search engines, each pattern search engine coupled to dual rulesbank caches for storing search rules and operative to execute saidpattern context search commands, a local results processor (LRP)operative to receive commands from a pattern search engine to analyzeand process partial matches during a search operation thereby assistingsaid pattern search engines in searching complex regular expressionpattern contexts, and wherein each physical pattern search lane is splitinto two logical pattern search lanes, each logical pattern search laneoperative to execute a search command received from a command unit.

There is further provided in accordance with the present invention, amethod of searching for patterns in an input character stream,comprising receiving pattern context search commands from a data engineand storing rules compiled therefrom in rule memory banks, executingsaid pattern context search commands from said rule memory banks on aplurality of pattern search engines organized into a plurality ofpattern search lanes, and providing a local results processor (LRP)associated with each pattern search lane for assisting said patternsearch engines in searching complex pattern contexts.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention is herein described, by way of example only, withreference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating an example computer processingsystem adapted to implement the pattern matching mechanism of thepresent invention;

FIG. 2 is a high level block diagram illustrating the pattern matchingcoprocessor of the present invention in an example wire speed processor;

FIG. 3 is a high level block diagram illustrating an alternativeembodiment of the pattern matching engine of the present invention as astand alone component;

FIG. 4 is a high level block diagram illustrating the upload manager andPMA;

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating the PMA software structure andcoprocessor library for an exemplary network security application;

FIG. 6 is a high level block diagram illustrating the upload managerhardware interface;

FIG. 7 is a pattern matching example search tree (i.e. state transitiondiagram) executed by the pattern matching engine;

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating the compiler and associated loader andprocessing scheme;

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating the format of an example rule;

FIG. 10 is a high level block diagram illustrating the operation of thesearch engine search engine state machine;

FIG. 11 is a high level diagram illustrating the cycling of the searchengine;

FIG. 12 is a block diagram illustrating the rules cache in more detail;

FIG. 13 is a high level block diagram illustrating the PMA attached tothe System Bus;

FIG. 14 is a block diagram illustrating the PMA in more detail;

FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating the structure of an application searchcommand in more detail;

FIG. 16 is a diagram illustrating the general flow of the applicationsoftware;

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating interleaved continuous sessions;

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating continuous mode pattern searchcommands;

FIG. 19 is a diagram illustrating the organization of the patterncontext rules;

FIG. 20 is a flow diagram illustrating the rule read logical flow;

FIG. 21 is a block diagram illustrating the dual rule bank scheme of thesearch engine memory cache;

FIG. 22 is a block diagram illustrating one rule bank of the searchengine memory cache in more detail;

FIG. 23 is a first diagram illustrating the global/local addresstranslation;

FIG. 24 is a second diagram illustrating the global/local addresstranslation;

FIG. 25 is a flow diagram illustrating the method of handling a missoperation;

FIG. 26 is a diagram illustrating the structure of an example rule;

FIG. 27A is a diagram illustrating the format of the shared field in thecase of dual hash;

FIG. 27B is a diagram illustrating the format of the shared field in thecase of an LRP instruction;

FIG. 27C is a diagram illustrating the format of the shared field in thecase of an extended address;

FIG. 28 is a diagram illustrating the structure of a rule line withextended rules;

FIG. 29 is a diagram illustrating the structure of an individual rule inmore detail;

FIG. 30 is a block diagram illustrating the classifier in more detail;

FIG. 31 is a high level block diagram illustrating the structure of thesearch engine;

FIG. 32 is a diagram illustrating an alternative embodiment of the rulememory scheme;

FIG. 33 is a diagram illustrating a finite state machine representing anexample search;

FIG. 34 is a block diagram illustrating the result reporting and LRPinterface;

FIG. 35 is a diagram illustrating the generation of buffer matchreports;

FIG. 36 is a diagram illustrating an example base hash configuration;

FIG. 37 is a diagram illustrating an example base hash configuration;

FIG. 38 is a diagram illustrating an example base transition rulemulti-hash configuration;

FIG. 39 is a diagram illustrating an example multi-hash configurationwith default rule bank repurposing;

FIG. 40 is a block diagram illustrating example rule match and addressgeneration logic;

FIG. 41 is a block diagram illustrating an example search without thebenefit of the LRP;

FIG. 42 is a block diagram illustrating the example search of FIG. 41with the benefit of the LRP of the present invention;

FIG. 43 is a simplified block diagram illustrating the LRP in moredetail;

FIG. 44 is a block diagram illustrating the collection of sample recordsfrom a lane;

FIG. 45 is a block diagram illustrating the collection of sample recordsfrom multiple lanes;

FIG. 46 is a block diagram illustrating the distribution of samplerecords to the performance counters;

FIG. 47 is a block diagram illustrating the structure of the performancecounter bank in more detail;

FIG. 48 is a flow diagram illustrating the upload manager local rulemanagement method;

FIG. 49 is a flow diagram illustrating the upload manager profilingmethod; and

FIG. 50 is a flow diagram illustrating the upload manager placementmethod.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Many computing applications require scanning for groups of patterns instreams of data. For example, in the field of network security, networktraffic is scanned for viruses and other types of network attacks.Patterns are developed to identify known attacks, and the incomingtraffic is scanned for these patterns.

Rather than search for patterns one at a time, such applications usuallygroup individual patterns into sets called pattern contexts. Theapplication searches the data for all patterns in a pattern contextsimultaneously. Applications typically have many such contexts forscanning different types of data in the input data stream.

This processing may be done by a gateway server, a dedicated networkappliance or the computer that is the final destination of the networktraffic. The gateway server or network appliance essentially interposethemselves between the computers on a local area network (LAN) and theoutside world, guaranteeing a level of security for all computers on theLAN.

For most common protocols, such as TCP/IP, network traffic arrives inthe form of packets. Packets from multiple data streams (or sessions)are usually interleaved, with each session being processed essentiallyindependently. It is appreciated that numerous other applications of thePMA unit are possible, for example, text analysis applications, proteinanalysis applications, etc.

The data in the packets are scanned against the patterns as they arereceived. This scanning can be executed by software, or a dedicatedASIC, FPGA or other computing device or chip. The patterns are suppliedas some form of regular expressions, a well-known and well-developedclass of pattern specification. There are many variations of regularexpressions, but they typically provide means of specifying: stringliterals; case insensitivity; character classes (e.g., a digit, or anupper class letter); repetition (e.g., using quantifiers); and ORoperations (i.e. match one of several possibilities).

The patterns are compiled before the software or hardware uses them toscan the packet data. This involves converting the human-readableregular expression syntax into an internal form that the PMA can handle.

For each detected pattern, the PMA produces a match report. The matchreport indicates which pattern was matched and where the match wasfound. The application typically analyzes the match reports as neededand takes appropriate action, e.g., rejecting the packet. In many cases,match reports cause the application to perform deeper inspection of thepacket data.

Network applications such as the security application just describedrequire high-speed scanning of data streams with low latency and highthroughput to meet the increasing speed of modern computer networks. Thepresent invention provides a pattern matching hardware acceleratoroptimized for scanning data streams against predefined sets of patternsat high speed that meets these requirements.

As will be appreciated by one skilled in the art, the present inventionmay be embodied as a system, method, computer program product or anycombination thereof. Accordingly, the present invention may take theform of an entirely hardware embodiment, an entirely software embodiment(including firmware, resident software, micro-code, etc.) or anembodiment combining software and hardware aspects that may allgenerally be referred to herein as a “circuit,” “module” or “system.”Furthermore, the present invention may take the form of a computerprogram product embodied in any tangible medium of expression havingcomputer usable program code embodied in the medium.

Any combination of one or more computer usable or computer readablemedium(s) may be utilized. The computer-usable or computer-readablemedium may be, for example but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic,optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus,device, or propagation medium. More specific examples (a non-exhaustivelist) of the computer-readable medium would include the following: anelectrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computerdiskette, a hard disk, a random access memory (RAM), a read-only memory(ROM), an erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM or Flashmemory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc read-only memory(CDROM), an optical storage device, a transmission media such as thosesupporting the Internet or an intranet, or a magnetic storage device.Note that the computer-usable or computer-readable medium could even bepaper or another suitable medium upon which the program is printed, asthe program can be electronically captured, via, for instance, opticalscanning of the paper or other medium, then compiled, interpreted, orotherwise processed in a suitable manner, if necessary, and then storedin a computer memory. In the context of this document, a computer-usableor computer-readable medium may be any medium that can contain, store,communicate, propagate, or transport the program for use by or inconnection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.The computer-usable medium may include a propagated data signal with thecomputer-usable program code embodied therewith, either in baseband oras part of a carrier wave. The computer usable program code may betransmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited towireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, RF, etc.

Computer program code for carrying out operations of the presentinvention may be written in any combination of one or more programminglanguages, including an object oriented programming language such asJava, Smalltalk, C++ or the like and conventional procedural programminglanguages, such as the “C” programming language or similar programminglanguages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer,partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partlyon the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely onthe remote computer or server. In the latter scenario, the remotecomputer may be connected to the user's computer through any type ofnetwork, including a local area network (LAN) or a wide area network(WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (forexample, through the Internet using an Internet Service Provider).

The present invention is described below with reference to flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams of methods, apparatus (systems) andcomputer program products according to embodiments of the invention. Itwill be understood that each block of the flowchart illustrations and/orblock diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the flowchartillustrations and/or block diagrams, can be implemented or supported bycomputer program instructions. These computer program instructions maybe provided to a processor of a general purpose computer, specialpurpose computer, or other programmable data processing apparatus toproduce a machine, such that the instructions, which execute via theprocessor of the computer or other programmable data processingapparatus, create means for implementing the functions/acts specified inthe flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

These computer program instructions may also be stored in acomputer-readable medium that can direct a computer or otherprogrammable data processing apparatus to function in a particularmanner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readablemedium produce an article of manufacture including instruction meanswhich implement the function/act specified in the flowchart and/or blockdiagram block or blocks.

The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer orother programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series ofoperational steps to be performed on the computer or other programmableapparatus to produce a computer implemented process such that theinstructions which execute on the computer or other programmableapparatus provide processes for implementing the functions/actsspecified in the flowchart and/or block diagram block or blocks.

A block diagram illustrating an example computer processing systemadapted to implement the system and methods of the present invention isshown in FIG. 1. The computer system, generally referenced 10, comprisesa processor 12 which may comprise a digital signal processor (DSP), 7central processing unit (CPU), microcontroller, microprocessor,microcomputer, ASIC or FPGA core. The system also comprises static readonly memory 18 and dynamic main memory 20 all in communication with theprocessor. The processor is also in communication, via bus 14, with anumber of peripheral devices that are also included in the computersystem. Peripheral devices coupled to the bus include a display device24 (e.g., monitor), alpha-numeric input device 25 (e.g., keyboard) andpointing device 26 (e.g., mouse, tablet, etc.)

The computer system is connected to one or more external networks suchas a LAN or WAN 23 via communication lines connected to the system viadata I/O communications interface 22 (e.g., network interface card orNIC). The network adapters 22 coupled to the system enable the dataprocessing system to become coupled to other data processing systems orremote printers or storage devices through intervening private or publicnetworks. Modems, cable modem and Ethernet cards are just a few of thecurrently available types of network adapters. The system also comprisesmagnetic or semiconductor based storage device 21 and/or 28 for storingapplication programs and data. The system comprises computer readablestorage medium that may include any suitable memory means, including butnot limited to, magnetic storage, optical storage, semiconductorvolatile or non-volatile memory or any other memory storage device.

Software adapted to implement the system and methods of the presentinvention is adapted to reside on a computer readable medium, such as amagnetic disk within a disk drive unit. Alternatively, the computerreadable medium may comprise a floppy disk, removable hard disk, Flashmemory 16, EEROM based memory, bubble memory storage, ROM storage,distribution media, intermediate storage media, execution memory of acomputer, and any other medium or device capable of storing for laterreading by a computer a computer program implementing the method of thisinvention. The software adapted to implement the system and methods ofthe present invention may also reside, in whole or in part, in thestatic or dynamic main memories or in firmware within the processor ofthe computer system (i.e. within microcontroller, microprocessor ormicrocomputer internal memory).

Other digital computer system configurations can also be employed toimplement the system and methods of the present invention, and to theextent that a particular system configuration is capable of implementingthe system and methods of this invention, it is equivalent to therepresentative digital computer system of FIG. 1 and within the spiritand scope of this invention.

Once they are programmed to perform particular functions pursuant toinstructions from program software that implements the system andmethods of this invention, such digital computer systems in effectbecome special purpose computers particular to the method of thisinvention. The techniques necessary for this are well-known to thoseskilled in the art of computer systems.

It is noted that computer programs implementing the system and methodsof this invention will commonly be distributed to users on adistribution medium such as floppy disk or CD-ROM or may be downloadedover a network such as the Internet using FTP, HTTP, or other suitableprotocols. From there, they will often be copied to a hard disk or asimilar intermediate storage medium. When the programs are to be run,they will be loaded either from their distribution medium or theirintermediate storage medium into the execution memory of the computer,configuring the computer to act in accordance with the method of thisinvention. All these operations are well-known to those skilled in theart of computer systems.

The flowchart and block diagrams in the Figures illustrate thearchitecture, functionality, and operation of possible implementationsof systems, methods and computer program products according to variousembodiments of the present invention. In this regard, each block in theflowchart or block diagrams may represent a module, segment, or portionof code, which comprises one or more executable instructions forimplementing the specified logical function(s). It should also be notedthat, in some alternative implementations, the functions noted in theblock may occur out of the order noted in the figures. For example, twoblocks shown in succession may, in fact, be executed substantiallyconcurrently, or the blocks may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality involved. It will also be notedthat each block of the block diagrams and/or flowchart illustration, andcombinations of blocks in the block diagrams and/or flowchartillustration, can be implemented by special purpose hardware-basedsystems that perform the specified functions or acts, or by combinationsof special purpose hardware and computer instructions.

Pattern Matching Accelerator Overview

Throughout this document the term pattern is defined as a definition ofa set of strings, where a string is defined as any sequence of symbolsor bits, such as the ASCII character set, for example. One commonexample of a pattern is a regular expression which provides for matchingstrings of text, such as particular characters, words, or patterns ofcharacters. A pattern context is defined as a set of patterns groupedtogether. A pattern context set is defined as a set of pattern contextsgrouped together (i.e. a superset of pattern contexts).

Throughout this document the term “rule” is defined as a specificationof a transition from one or multiple states to one next state within astate diagram or tree structure. A rule comprises a set of conditionsdefining the states and the input values for which the rule applies.This is denoted as the test part of the rule. A rule also comprises aresult part which defines the next state. The result part may furtherinclude information associated with the next state, such as the hashinformation needed to search for a matching rule for the next state anda given input value, and, for example, a result flag indicating that thenext state corresponds to the detection of a given pattern in the inputstream. Further information may also be associated with a rule, forexample, an instruction. Rules also have a priority assigned.

Throughout this document the term “initial rule” is defined as a rulebranching to the initial state, i.e. the initial rule's result partdefines the initial state as next state. The term “default rule” isdefined as a rule that is assigned as such by the pattern compiler or byother means, and which will be evaluated and selected if matched by thesearch engine when no matching transition rule has been found for agiven current state. The term “transition rule” is defined as a rulethat is neither an initial rule nor a default rule.

Throughout this document the term “rules structure” is defined as a datastructure that is comprised of rules and which is organized in such waythat it can be executed by a search engine (SE). The rules structure mayalso comprise further information that is associated with the rules itcontains, for example, instructions.

Throughout this document the term search engine is defined as aprogrammable state machine implemented in hardware, software or acombination thereof. A search engine (also referred to as a patternsearch engine) is programmed by providing/writing a rules structure in amemory that is accessed by the search engine. The search engineprocesses an input data stream by executing the given rules structure inthe following way. For each consecutive input character in the inputstream the highest-priority rule is searched in the rules structurehaving a test part containing conditions that match the current stateand the given input character. The next state defined in the found rulethen becomes the new state of the search engine and is used to processthe next input character.

A high level block diagram illustrating the pattern matching coprocessorof the present invention in an example wire speed processor is shown inFIG. 2. The example wire speed processor, generally referenced 30,comprises one or more general purpose CPU cores 32, a memory controller34 coupled to main memory 31 (alternatively may be internal to processor30), one or more accelerators 40, 42 and processor bus (or system bus)(Bus) 38. One of the accelerators comprises a pattern matchingaccelerator (PMA) 44 that is attached to the Bus. The PMA (also referredto as PMA unit or module) assists software threads to find the presenceand location of strings in an input data stream that match a givenpattern. The patterns are defined using regular expressions which arecompiled into a data structure comprised of rules, also denoted as rulesstructure, subsequently processed by the search hardware.

Note that in an alternative embodiment shown in FIG. 3, the PMA isimplemented as a stand alone integrated circuit 52. In this embodiment,the PMA is attached to a PCIe endpoint controller 54 to form a PCIeattached accelerator that communicates over PCIe link 60, for example,with a host PCIe adapter 56 connected over a bus 62 to one or moreprocessor(s) 58 (e.g., general purpose CPU core(s)). As an example asecond PCIe device 67 is shown in communication with the processors 58via PCIe endpoint 68 and PCIe host 56. The processors 58 communicatewith main memory 64 via memory controller 66. It is appreciated that anysuitable communication link, other than PCIe, could also be used withoutdeparting from the scope of the invention. In this embodiment, thestructure of the PMA is the same as the PMA in FIG. 2.

The patterns to be searched in the input stream are defined by the useras a set of regular expressions. The patterns are grouped in patterncontexts. Each pattern context includes one or more patterns to besearched. The full set of pattern contexts to be used by the system at agiven time defines a pattern context set. The sets of regularexpressions which define the pattern context set are compiled by apattern compiler to generate a rules structure used by the acceleratorhardware. The rules are compiled before search run time and stored inmain memory, in rule cache memory within the PMA (described in moredetail infra), or a combination of the two.

The software thread sends an application search command from theprocessor directly to the accelerator to initiate a search. It isappreciated that the mechanism of the invention may use any suitablemethod of initiating a search and is not critical to the invention, forexample, utilization of a command queue in memory from which the PMAreads commands. Once received, the command comprises a pointer to theinput data on which the search is done, one or more identifiers of thepattern context to be searched on the given input data, a pointer to thematch results output buffer and other parameters required for theoperation of the PMA. The PMA reads the data, executes the search andreturns the search results back to the software through an outputbuffer. At the end of the operation a status is returned and an optionaladditional status and/or completion notifications.

The PMA is based on the accelerator hardware as well as three associatedsoftware elements: (1) a regular expression compiler which functions togenerate the hardware readable rules structure from the user definedregular expressions; (2) an upload manager which functions to manage adynamic loading of rules into the PMA hardware local memory; and (3) APIsoftware that functions to format commands going to the PMA, interpretsand post processes match results coming back from the PMA and managesdata structures needed to communicate with the PMA (e.g., the outputbuffers). The compiler and upload manager software elements operate inthe background of the normal PMA operation to allow dynamic updating andreplacement of the pattern context set in use during run time.

The PMA is attached to the system bus through a Bus Interface Unit(BIU). The PMA is controlled by one or more software threads executingon one or more of the processor cores 32. The processor 32 defines asource buffer and an identifier of a set of patterns for a search, alsoreferred to as a scan. Rules expressing the patterns to be searched arestored in local memory attached directly to the accelerator, or in thesystem memory. Upon completion of the search, information about anymatches is returned, typically to the calling processor thread.

Example features of the PMA include (1) handling a rich set of regularexpression features; (2) searching for multiple regular expressions(i.e. pattern contexts) in a single command which reads and processesthe input characters and searches for regular expressions (patterns) ina single pass; (3) the ability to save and restore scan state, known ascontinuous search, to allow searching data which might be segmented tomultiple network packets (such sequences referred to as a session), andsupporting millions of simultaneously open sessions; (4) reporting allmatches including reporting end position and supporting reporting ofstart match position; (5) wire speed processing providing high-speedpattern searching; and (6) relatively small chip real estate required incombination with no need for dedicated fast off-chip memory.

The software interface of the PMA comprises a search command that isinitiated by software using an application search command initiated by aprocessor command. In one embodiment, the command stores one or moresearch commands allowing the input data to be read only once for one ormore different pattern context searches. All search matches are reportedback to the software through an output buffer in the PMA. In the eventof a search match, the hardware reports the match position and anidentifier of the matching pattern. In one embodiment, any number ofconcurrent sessions can be handled and continuous mode is supportedwhereby during a session processing, a search state is transferredbetween consecutive packets allowing a search to cross the boundary of aan input data stream pointed to by an application search command (i.e.typically a network packet). Further, the software interface supportspacket interleaving whereby packets from different applications can beinterleaved.

In one embodiment, the PMA comprises eight command units handling eightapplication search commands at a time, each command comprising twosearches (i.e. up to 16 searches). Embodiments comprising any number ofcommand units are contemplated as well. A flexible search is performedon a pattern set using a programmable state machine search enginereferred to as a search engine. A plurality (e.g., four) of searchengine lanes, each comprising a plurality (e.g., four) of parallelrunning search engines are provided. Each search engine comprises localrules (also referred to as resident rules) storage and global rules(also referred to as non-resident rules) storage. Rules required for asearch which are not in the local storage are fetched by hardware fromthe main memory to the local memory. The rules are managed in a cachethat in one example embodiment comprises both a software managed portionand a hardware managed portion. Local memory storage is managed byupload manager software using a set of management application searchcommands as described in more detail infra. In addition, a performancemonitoring scheme allows tracking the efficiency of local memory usage.This information is used by the upload manager to select the rules thatare placed in the local memory to improve search efficiency andperformance.

A high level block diagram illustrating the upload manager and PMA isshown in FIG. 4. The example circuit, generally referenced 70, comprisesapplications 84, compiler 76 comprising upper and lower layers, patterncontext set (i.e. regular expressions) 74, compiled pattern context set78, upload manager 80, translated pattern context 82, PMA 92, indextable 86, rules map 94 data 88 and results 90.

The applications 84 define the pattern context set to be complied. Thecommunication is performed to a system dependent compiler upper layer.This layer calls the compiler lower layer which functions as thecompilation and rule optimization engine. The compiler 76 generates acompiled pattern context set 78 and communicates the rule structure tothe upload manager 80. The upload manager 80 may receive pre-definedrule usage statistics to allow it select an optimized initial setting ofthe PMA local memory from the application preliminary information. Theupload manager initializes the PMA internal data structures, such as theclassifier, PCH table, Global Address Translation Table, and the localrules in the local memory using upload manager commands. During run timethe upload manager collects performance information from the PMAhardware to optimize performance by replacing the local rules withfrequently accessed rules. The applications call the hardware servicesdirectly using application search commands.

In operation, at the time of initialization or when an update isrequired, one of the applications 84 defines the pattern context set(PCS) and sends the regular expressions to the compiler 76. The compiler76 functions to receive as input a set of pattern contexts as regularexpressions 74 (analogous to source code). The compiler runs once andcompiles the pattern context set into a compiled set of pattern contexts78 (analogous to object code). The compiler generates a PCS filecontaining the output files of the compiled PCS input and a rules mapcomprising the mapping between PMA states (i.e. reported match results)and the patterns. The upload manager 80 takes the compiled patterncontext set 78 and translates it to a translated version of the patterncontext set 82 (analogous to linked object code) for writing to mainmemory that is accessed by the PMA 92 in a form that the hardware canexecute. Subsequently, some rules in main memory are written to thelocal rule area. The upload manager functions to generate the Rules Map94 comprising (1) mappings from application pattern context identifiersto uploaded hardware pattern context identifiers, used by theapplication when submitting searches; and (2) match report decodeinformation used by the application to decode match results intoapplication pattern identifiers. The upload manager also initializes thePMA hardware using upload manager commands and maintains the PMA datastructures during run time. The application sends search instructions tothe PMA hardware via processor commands and the hardware returns codedmatch results which the application translates using the match reportdecode information in the Rules Map.

A diagram illustrating the PMA software structure and coprocessorlibrary for an exemplary network security application is shown in FIG.5. The software structure comprises pattern files 102 input to thecompiler 104 which functions to compile the pattern files into PCS files106. The PCS files are input to the M manager tasks 108 in the userspace which are handled by the search manager API 113 in the softwarelibrary 112. Network data traffic is input to the N search applications110 which are handled by the search API 115 in the library 112. Thesearch manager API 113 and search API 115 communicate with the PMA rootprocess 114 via interprocess communications (IPC) and a shared datablock 116. The upload manager 118 configures the PMA 119 via applicationsearch commands which are also written to the PMA via the search API115.

A high level block diagram illustrating the upload manager hardwareinterface is shown in FIG. 6. The upload manager 122 is responsible forseveral sets of operations as follows: (1) managing the rules structure(i.e. the output of the compiler) in the main memory; (2) initializingvarious hardware structures in the PMA 120; and (3) monitoring theoperation of the PMA and balancing its performance.

The upload manager controls the hardware using the following commands:(1) initializing the classifiers 123 in the search engine; (2)initializing the rules clusters in the local memory portion of the rulescache 129; (3) initializing the global

local address translation (GLAT) tables 128; (4) monitoring the usage ofthe rules using search engine performance counters 126 (described inmore detail infra); and (5) initializing the pattern context header(PCH) table 124.

The PCH comprises management information required for the hardware toexecute the search operation. This includes, but not limited to, apointer to the related GLAT entries, the algorithm engines that can beused, the search engine in use in each algorithm engine, etc.

In operation, the upload manager sends a command in the form of anupload manager command using a processor command. The hardware comprisesa separate queue (i.e. channel #2) for the upload manager commands,separate from the search commands sent by the applications (i.e. channel#1).

The upload manager is also responsible for tuning the rules stored inthe search engine local memory to achieve optimal performance. One ormore dedicated hardware search engine performance counters (BPC)functions to collect samples of the search engine processed rules andprocess it using a dedicated set of counters. Alternatively, the samplescan be collected using software as well, depending on the particularimplementation. The information on what to count is loaded by the uploadmanager sending a “Load BPC” command. The Load BPC either initializesthe counter values, configures the sample processing (i.e. hash, mask,etc.) or both. The counter results are collected by the upload managerusing a “Store BPC” command.

A pattern matching example search tree (i.e. state transition diagram)executed by the pattern matching engine is shown in FIG. 7. The solidtransition lines represent initial rules which point back to the initialstate S0. The dashed transition lines represent default rules whichpoint to a state at the first level in a search tree. The level of astate is defined in this case as the length of the shortest path in thesearch tree from the initial state to the given state, expressed innumber of rules. The dotted transition lines represent transition ruleswhich comprise all remaining rules that are neither initial rules nordefault rules.

The pattern matching engine is based on a Finite State Machine (FSM)referred to as the search engine (SE) which in one embodiment, isoptimized for hardware operation. In one embodiment, the search enginecomprises a programmable state machine is referred to as a BalancedRouting Table search (BaRT)-based Finite State Machine or BFSM. Thesearch engine is essentially a programmable FSM that stores the statetransition rules in a large table. The rules structure obtained bycompiling the pattern context set defines the transitions between thestates which are evaluated by the search engine to determine the nextstate to branch to after processing an input character (i.e. symbol orbyte) in a data stream being received by the search engine.

The data stream received by the search engine comprises a series ofbytes, which may be a continuous stream or may be in the form of datapackets (as is common in Internet communication). The search enginescans the data stream for input strings that match specific patterns.The PMA engine is configured to pass the data stream to each searchengine involved in the scanning operation, and further arranged tooutput a signal indicating a pattern match when a state transition ruleexecuted by one of the search engines indicates a pattern match.

As an example consider detecting all occurrences of the pattern“testing” in an input character stream. The match function is defined bythe following seven search engine transition rules R3 to R9, one initialrule R1 and one default rule R2. The state transition rules for encodingsuch a state machine are as follows:

State Transition Rules Current Next Rule state Input -> State OutputPriority R1 * * -> S0 — 0 R2 * t -> S1 — 1 R3 S1 e -> S2 — 2 R4 S2 s ->S3 — 2 R5 S3 t -> S4 — 2 R6 S4 i -> S5 — 2 R7 S5 n -> S6 — 2 R8 S6 g ->S7 1 2 R9 S4 e -> S2 — 2

Each rule governs the operation of the search engine by moving from afirst state to a second state according to the input, with a possibleoutput being triggered by a change in state. The wildcard character ‘*’in rules R1 and R2 refers to any state or input. For example, the firststate transition rule R1 includes a wildcard state condition and awildcard input condition, the second state transition rule R2 includes awildcard state condition and a specified input condition, and the thirdstate transition rule R3 includes a specified state condition and aspecified input condition. Transition rule R3 states that if an ‘e’ isreceived while in state S1, the next state will be S2. Transition ruleR2 states that if a ‘t’ is received while being in any given state, thenext state will be S1. Transition rule R1 states that if any characteris received while being in any state, the next state will be S0.

As this example illustrates, it is possible that multiple rules canmatch for a given state and input due to wildcard conditions. In orderto resolve such situations, the state transition rules are assignedpriorities as shown in the above table. When deciding on the change ofstate, the search engine acts on the rule with the highest priority, incase of multiple matching rules. For the above example, this means thatif the search engine is in state S1, receiving an ‘e’ results in atransition to a next state S2 as defined by transition rule R3,receiving a ‘t’ results in a transition to a next state S1 as defined bytransition rule R2, and receiving any other character that is not an ‘e’or a T results in a transition to the initial state S0 as defined bytransition rule R1 which has the lowest priority.

If state S7 is reached, it means that the pattern ‘testing’ wassuccessfully found. For that reason, rule R8, which defines thetransition to state S7, includes an output component indicating apattern match, which is the number one in the output column for thatrule. Consequently, this set of rules will return an output one for eachand every presence of the string “testing” in any longer input streamwithout returning an output one in any other circumstance.

The rules are generated automatically by a pattern context compiler. Adiagram illustrating the compiler and associated loader and processingscheme is shown in FIG. 8. The pattern context compilation scheme,generally referenced 130, is divided into three portions, namely, acompiler portion comprising pattern distributor 132, transition rulegenerator 134 and search engine compiler 136; a loader portioncomprising upload manager 138; and a hardware multi-threaded processingportion comprising pattern search mechanism including input controller140, a plurality of search lanes each including a plurality of searchengines and associated cache memory 142 and a results processor 144.

The pattern compiler functions to compile the input pattern context set,which is defined as regular expressions, into the set of binary rulesprocessed by the PMA hardware. The pattern compiler has three mainsoftware building blocks: (1) a pattern distributor 132 distributespatterns over multiple pattern sets, based on pattern properties(conflicts, overlaps); (2) a transition rule generator 134 converts eachpattern set into state transition rule sets; and (3) a search enginecompiler 136 organizes transition rule sets into search engine datastructures using state clustering, state encoding, and Balanced RoutingTable (BaRT) search algorithm based compression.

The pattern contexts, expressed as regular expressions, are processed bya compiler. The compiler runs offline and functions to generate a rulesstructure, equivalent to the input regular expressions. The executablerules structure is processed by a set of hardware search engines, i.e.the search engines, inside the PMA. The rules structure is loaded intothe PMA rule memory by the upload manager software which initializes thePMA hardware. The upload manager operates as a “driver” that controlsthe PMA. The upload manager also functions to monitor the operation ofthe hardware and dynamically reloads the rules to the local rules areawithin the PMA to optimize the performance of the PMA hardware.

A diagram illustrating the format of a rule is shown in FIG. 9. Therule, generally referenced 150, comprises a current state 152, input154, conditions field 156, next state 158, table address 160 and mask162. The test part of the rule functions to check that this rule appliesto the current input character and search engine state. The results partof the rule functions to define the next state (i.e. new state) of thesearch engine if the test part passes successfully. The result part ofrules that branch to a next state that corresponds to a match includes aso called result flag to indicate a match. Note that the inventionincludes alternative means of match reporting as well. The search enginereads new rules for every input character and updates the state registeraccordingly. Every cycle the search engine reads two new rule lines(e.g., each rule line comprises a plurality of rules (e.g., three)). Onerule line is for the transition rules and the other rule line is for thedefault rules. The pattern search decision is made based on theinformation in both rule lines. The frequency of this cycle defines themaximal bandwidth of a single search engine.

A high level block diagram illustrating the operation of the searchengine state machine is shown in FIG. 10. The circuit, generallyreferenced 170, comprises a transition rule memory 171 for storingtransition rules, a default rule memory 172 for storing default rules,both of which are coupled to a rule selector 176 which functions todetermine which rule applies and generates the next state based on thecurrent contents of the state register 174, output of the classifier178, default rule memory 172, transition rule memory 171 and the inputcharacter stream 179. The circuit 170 also comprises transition ruleaddress generator 173, table register 175, mask register 177, defaultrule address generator 187 and initial state register 181, initial tableregister 183 and initial mask register 185. The state, table and maskregisters keep track of the current state of the search engine.

For each character, the search engine reads a set of transition rulesbased on the current state and input character and a set of defaultrules based on the initial state and input character, compares the rulesagainst the input character, and selects the next state based on one ofthe rules. Basic search engine operation performs the followingoperation for each input character: (1) calculate the address for thetransition rule line based on the current search engine state and thecurrent character, and calculate the address for the default rule linebased on the initial search engine state and the current character; (2)read the rules from the search engine rule tables; (3) for each one ofthe rules, check if the current state and character meets the rule'smatch criteria; (4) pick the matching rule, and if multiple rules match,the one with the highest priority is selected according to awell-defined rule priority; (5) each rule has a result flag, and if theselected rule's result flag is set, a match is reported; and (6) thesearch engine state is updated to the next state, as determined by therule.

Each search engine rule comprises three basic portions: (1) a matchportion; (2) a next state portion; and (3) various flags. The matchportion determines if the rule matches. The match portion checks if theinput character or the class info provided by the classifier matches thetest part of a particular rule. Various types of character checksinclude case-sensitive and case-insensitive tests, class tests, andnegated tests. The match portion also checks if the rule applies to thecurrent state, allowing rules for multiple states to be packed togetheron a single rule line. Considering the next-state portion, if the rulematches, the search engine state is updated which controls the set ofrules read and processed for the next character. Various flags include,for example, the result flag.

The search engine has three kinds of rules (transition rules, defaultrules and initial rules), all of which may be read for a givencharacter. Transition rules are read based on the current state and theinput character. Transition rules have a higher priority than thedefault rules and initial rules. Default rules are used when no matchingtransition rule is found. The default rules are read based on theinitial state and the input character. Since the default rules willmatch any given state, they depend only on the input character. Theinitial rule has the lowest priority and is only used if no othermatching rule is found. The initial rule simply returns the searchengine to the initial state, and is not a rule in the normal sense thatsomething is read from the table.

Default and transition rules are indexed separately, and are thereforetypically held in separate physical data structures. For each character,the search engine reads a line of transition rules and a line of defaultrules. Each line typically contains multiple rules, all of which arechecked in parallel. In one embodiment, the priority of the transitionrules and the default rules in each line is defined in a decreasingpriority from left to right.

Search trees (or state transition diagrams) for pattern matchingapplications typically include states for which no transition rules aredefined. One example is state S7 in FIG. 7, for which only the initialrule branching to state S0 applies, which is represented by a solidtransition line. For these types of states no transition rules have tobe read, but rather only default rules are read. This is to enablesaving memory access bandwidth and improving performance by preventingadditional latency in case of a miss to the rules cache. This isexploited by providing a corresponding indication in the rules branchingto a next state for which no transition rules are defined. The lattertypes of states are also referred to as “next state invalid”. In oneexample embodiment, this information can be provided using a specialencoding of the next state within a rule, for example, starting with twobits set at the most significant bit positions.

The search engine thus defines a compact way to calculate the nextaddress using a limited set of match conditions. This allows relativelysimple hardware to run at high frequency to achieve high-performancepattern matching.

As an illustrative example, consider the search for the example pattern“testing” shown in FIG. 7. If a portion of the data stream comprises“testesting” (which contains only a single match with the pattern“testing”), then the search engine operates according to the rules ofthe table shown supra as follows:

Starting with state S0 (the search engine always defaults to thisstate); the first letter “t” R2 applies and moves to state S1 (R2 has ahigher priority than R1 and so takes precedence, R5 does not apply asthe current state is not S3); second letter “e” R3 applies and moves toS2; third letter “s” R4 applies and moves to S3; fourth letter “t” R5applies and moves to S4; fifth letter “e” R9 applies and moves to S2;sixth letter “s” R4 applies and moves to S3; seventh letter “t” R5applies and moves to S4; eighth letter “i” R6 applies and moves to S5;ninth letter “n” R7 applies and moves to S6; tenth letter “g” R8 appliesand moves to S7 and outputs a “1” indicating that the pattern “testing”,with corresponding pattern identifier “1”, has been detected in the datastream being scanned by the search engine.

To permit the search engine state machine to run at maximal speed it ispreferable to keep the required rules close to the search engine. In oneembodiment, the PMA needs to access new rules every cycle. Therefore,the search engine reads the rules from a fast access SRAM inside thePMA.

The total rules image for a real application, however, can be hundredsof megabytes, making it impractical to keep all the rules in fast chipmemory. Hence, not all the rules can be placed in local (on chip)storage. On the other hand, there is typically a clear pattern ofcommonly used pattern contexts on each of the workloads. The searchengine therefore typically caches frequently accessed rules nearby whilekeeping the majority of rules in more distant memory structures. Forexample, depending on the implementation, several of the most commonlyused pattern contexts may cover more than half of the character scans.Further, in typical applications most of the pattern contexts are rarelyused. Even in frequently used contexts, most rules are rarely accessed.Those rules can be loaded when required from main memory. Performanceprofiler feedback is collected by the upload manager and used to tunethe rules preloaded in the local rule cache store. Depending on theparticular implementation, a low miss rate can be achieved for largepattern contexts. Smaller pattern contexts can be completely loaded tothe local rules store.

As shown in FIG. 11, the search engine cycles between a read new rulesstate 180 and calculate next state 184. In the read new rules state, thesearch engine reads a new transition rule 182 for every input characterprocessed. Using the rules 182 and the input character, an address 186pointing to the next rule is generated in state 184.

A block diagram illustrating the rules cache in more detail is shown inFIG. 12. The rules cache, generally referenced 190, comprises a softwaremanaged cache portion 194 and a hardware managed cache portion 192. Thesoftware managed cache portion stores the local rules 200 which areloaded and updated via the upload manager interface 198. The hardwaremanaged cache portion stores the temporary rules 206 which are loaded bythe PMA hardware cache logic 204 from system memory 202.

In one embodiment, the search engine state machine logic accesses thenext rules in a single cycle. It simultaneously reads a rule line fromboth the transition rules and the default rules. The rules are alwaysread from the close memory attached directly to the search engine logic196. The commonly used rules are defined and loaded by the uploadmanager into the local rules area 200. The upload manager continuouslyupdates the rules at run time and ensures that the most frequently usedrules are in the local rules area 200. Other rules are loaded by the PMAcache logic 204 into the temporary rules area 206. These rules are alsolocated in a memory attached directly to the search engine logic 196. Arule miss happens if a rule is neither in the local rules area nor inthe temporary rules area. In this case, the hardware fetches the missinghardware managed cache rule line from main memory, while the searchengine meanwhile processes a different search command so as to makeefficient use of time and resources.

A high level block diagram illustrating the PMA attached to the SystemBus is shown in FIG. 13. The circuit, generally referenced 210,comprises system bus 212, PMA 216 comprising data engine (DE) 218incorporating Bus interface unit (BIU) 214, crossbar (Xbar) 220 andalgorithm engine (AE) 222.

The PMA accelerator 216 is attached to the bus 212 using the businterface 214. The PMA comprises two main portions connected through acrossbar (Xbar 220): (1) a data engine 218 operative to interface to thesoftware through the bus, process the software commands, manage theinput data and output (i.e. match results), and report status andcompletion events; and (2) an algorithm engine 222 which functions toimplement the search algorithm and comprises the search engineprogrammable state machine.

It is noted that, in one example embodiment, the PMA can process eightapplication search commands in parallel, wherein each application searchcommand drives two search commands. The PMA comprises four independentphysical lanes, each composed of four programmable state machines (i.e.search engines). Each lane is time multiplexed by two logical lanes andeach search engine is connected to its own memory store (e.g., SRAM).The SRAM holds local rules (i.e. the software managed cache) andtemporary rules (i.e. the hardware managed cache). Rules from mainmemory are automatically mapped to local address range upon being copiedfor efficient memory usage.

A block diagram illustrating the PMA in more detail is shown in FIG. 14.The PMA, generally referenced 230, comprises a data engine 232 and analgorithm engine 234 coupled by character crossbar 236 and matchreporting crossbar 238. The data engine comprises bus interface unit(BIU) 244 for interfacing the coprocessor to the system bus 240, aplurality of command units 246 (eight in this example), each comprisinga data buffer 248 and scan units 250, a command queue 252, GLAT 256, PCH254 and upload manager handler 258. The upload manager handler logicreceives and executes commands sent by the upload manager software, asdescribed in more detail infra. The algorithm engine comprises aplurality of physical lanes 260 (four in this example), each comprisinga classifier 262 and a plurality of search engines 264 (four perphysical lane in this example) and a local results processor (LRP) 266.The algorithm engine also comprises search engine performance counters268 used to profile rule access. Each search engine 264 comprises searchengine logic 270, local rules cache (SRAM) 272 and temporary rules cache(SRAM) 274.

The PMA comprises several major components. The data engine 232 CommandQueue Manager (CQM) 252 comprises a queue for storing incomingapplication search commands which are not yet active. Each command unit(CU) 246 (the data engine may comprise any number of CUs) functions tofetch all data stream cache lines required for all scans in its command.Use of multiple command units compensates for the latency of the rulemiss delay (i.e. from main memory) and the data fetch. One CU can makeuse of a lane while another CU is stalled fetching new data or missingrules. The CU comprises two or more scan or search units (SU) 250. TheSU functions to handle the operations related to the individual searchin the command. The SU arbitrates for a lane that has the rules requiredfor the processing of the scan. Once the SU wins the arbitration, it isconnected to a lane inside the algorithm engine 234. Following theengagement between the SU and the lane, the scan state information isforwarded to the lane. At the end of the engagement between the lane andthe SU the state information is transferred back to the SU if required.

The SU communicates with the algorithm engine across a crossbar likestructure (XBar) 236, 238. The crossbar allows all the SUs to connect toall the lanes. The Xbar comprises a crossbar or other interconnect thatconnects the SU to the physical lanes 260. All the information betweenthe SU and the physical lane is transferred through the Xbar including:the input characters, state and match results. It is noted that anyother suitable interconnect topologies are suitable for use with theinvention. In one embodiment, it is not required by the invention thatevery CU be able to connect to every lane.

The Bus Interface Unit (BIU) 244 functions to interface the PMA to thesystem bus 240. The BIU performs read/write arbitration and interfacesto the system bus passing commands and data back and forth as well asmanaging the associated interrupt queues.

The upload manager handler 258 functions to manage the interface to theupload manager software and stores the data engine control unit controldata structures. The data engine also comprises PMA memory mapped I/O(MMIO) mapped registers.

The algorithm engine 234 comprises a multiple physical lane patternsearch engine 260. Each lane comprises of a set of search engines (e.g.,four). Note that each physical lane optionally runs two or moreindependent logical lanes. Every physical lane comprises multiple searchengines which are time multiplexed between two Logical Lanes (i.e. thememory (e.g., SRAM) is read every other cycle per each search engine onthe logical lanes). Each physical search engine 264 can be timemultiplexed to provide two or more logical search engines. Each physicallane 260 also comprises a Local Result Processor (LRP) per each logicallane and a classifier 262 which functions to generate a class value ofthe classes associated with the particular input character (e.g., a 32bit value).

Pattern Matching Accelerator Functional Description

To perform searches, applications send application search commands tothe PMA. An application search command comprises several data items, asillustrated in FIG. 15. The application search command, generalreferenced 280 identifies the pattern context 281 containing thepatterns to be searched. In the example embodiment shown, the identifiercomprises an index into the Pattern Context Header (PCH) table 289 whichis the indexed entry providing information about the pattern contextneeded to perform the search. The application search command furthercomprises the location (i.e. data buffer pointer) of the data packet 310to be searched in memory 282, and the range of bytes within that packetto search, as defined by start 283 and stop 284 offsets within thepacket. Alternatively, for example, only a starting address and lengthmay be specified. The application search command also provides theaddress in memory of an output buffer 312 in the output buffer pointerfield 285. The PMA places match reports identifying all pattern matchesfound during the search in the output buffer. The application searchcommand further comprises the address of a status block 314 in memory inthe status block pointer field 286. Following execution of the searchcommand by the PMA, the PMA places information concerning the outcome ofthe search in the status block, such as error conditions and the numberof match reports produced. Two fields in the application search command,the continuous mode indicator 287 and the sequence number 288, are usedto support continuous mode searches, described in more detail infra. Thestate block 316, placed at a fixed offset from the state block toeliminate the need for an additional address field in the applicationsearch command, is also used during continuous mode searches.

In one embodiment, a single search command calls up to two searchoperations on two independent pattern contexts. A pattern context canhold multiple patterns (e.g., thousands or more). Prior to the search,the pattern context set is compiled and the hardware initializedaccordingly. In the example embodiment presented herein, the PMAhardware can process a plurality (e.g., eight) application searchcommands in parallel and hold additional application search commands inits input buffer to prevent stalled commands head of line blocking.

A PMA request is initiated by the software by writing a command referredto as an application search command. The use of application searchcommands allows efficient communication by which the software pushes acommand to a queue in the hardware. It is appreciated that alternativemethods of communications are known in the art and may be usedincluding, for example, a “doorbell” to notify that there are additionalelements in a work queue in the memory, etc. For illustration purposesonly, the use of the application search command is used through thedescription of the PMA.

The application search command holds the information required for thePMA accelerator to manage the operation and includes: source databuffer, target buffers, command to execute, location of the status andother parameters, etc. Additional information is transferred from one ofthe general processor cores to the PMA accelerator BIU during theaddress phase of a coprocessor request. The application search commandalso comprises a pointer to the status block which holds the status ofthe application search command operation, and to the state block whichholds search state information. At the end of the operation, status isreturned along with optional additional status and/or completionnotifications. The PMA functions to read the data to be analyzed andreturn the corresponding match results. In one embodiment, input data iscopied into the PMA leaving a valid copy in the system coherent memory.Input data is described in the application search command by a directdata descriptor (which points directly to the data buffer in memory) orby an indirect data descriptor (which points to a list of datadescriptors in memory when each data descriptor, points to the databuffer in memory).

A diagram illustrating the general flow of the application software isshown in FIG. 16.

The flow, generally referenced 290, of how the application software usesPMA is shown with reference to the numbered lines 1 through 9. First,the software 292 defines the input data 304 and results output buffer306 (reference line #1). The software then builds an application searchcommand in the controlling processor 294 and issues a PMA processorcommand (reference line 2). The controlling processor sends a request tothe PMA accelerator 296 through the system bus. The application searchcommand is written into internal queues in the Bus interface 298(reference line #3). The request is sent to the data engine 300(reference line #4). The accelerator reads the application searchcommand and request main memory reads through the data engine. Dependingon the application search command, it may read the status block andstate block. The accelerator then reads the source data from the inputdata 304 (i.e. the input character stream) it needs to process theapplication search command (reference line #5). The algorithm engine 302processes the data (reference line #6) and the accelerator writes outputdata 306 (reference line #7). The accelerator writes final status to thestatus block 308 (reference line #8) and then signals back to thesoftware 292 that the request processing has been completed (referenceline #9).

A description of the search application search command flow will now bepresented. Prior to sending application search commands, one or morehardware internal data structures are initialized by the upload managersoftware. The application search commands are sent by the application topost a new work request to the PMA. Multiple application search commandscan be posted to PMA by one or more applications. A search requestpoints to a buffer in the application memory effective address space. Anapplication search command may be used to perform a search on a packetreceived from the network. The search command input buffer may comprisecomplete network packets. In one embodiment, each application searchcommand comprises one or two search commands.

The PMA supports a continuous mode in which the boundary of the searchcrosses the boundary of a single input packet (and the boundary of asingle application search command). Each packet may be searched as itarrives. The search state at the end of one packet may be saved in mainmemory, and then reloaded to continue the pattern search when the nextpacket arrives, as if both packets had been scanned at once. Theapplication search commands related in a continuous mode are referred toas a stream or session.

Application search commands are received from the Bus interface and arestored inside the Command Queue Manager (CQM) 252 (FIG. 14). The CQM isresponsible for distributing the application search commands between thecommand units (CU) 246. A new application search command in a continuousmode (saves search results and next search picks up where left off)should maintain order with a previous application search command of thesame session. Order must be maintained so that a next search commandreads the search state saved by the previous search command of the samesession. Therefore, the CQM sends a new application search command onlyafter the CU has completed the processing of the previous relatedapplication search command. The CU processes a single application searchcommand at a time and therefore a subsequent application search commandwaits in the CQM for the completion of the previous application searchcommand. Non-related application search commands can be completed out oforder.

For improved performance, application search commands pending due toordering constraints preferably do not inhibit later application searchcommands without ordering constraints from being processed. The CQMholds a plurality of pending application search commands, therebyallowing application search commands without ordering constraints to beprocessed ahead of multiple pending application search commands. The CQMsends the oldest hazard free application search command to an availableCU.

The CU analyses the validity of the search command and reads the stateblock as required (i.e. if the current request is not the first requestin a session). Further checking is performed following the reading ofthe status block. If an error is detected at this stage or at a laterstage in the application search command processing, the applicationsearch command processing is terminated and an error status is reportedthrough the status block. The CU is also responsible for reading theinput data required for the search operation and for writing the matchresults to the output buffer. When continuous mode application searchcommands are processed, the CU reads the state block at the beginning ofthe request processing and updates the state block at the end of theoperation. In the case of an error, the CU has to write a valid searchstate or avoid overwriting the previous search state.

In the example embodiment presented herein, the amount of input searchdata referenced by a single application search command is limited.Longer searchers may be performed using a chain of continuous modeapplication search commands. An application search command can hold oneor more search requests for the same input buffer allowing multiplesearches to be performed on every input byte read. The CU reads all thedata needed by both searches. Data needed by both searches is read onlyonce.

The CU reads the Pattern Context Header (PCH) for both scans from thePCH Table. The PCH holds information which is required to initiate thesearch engine search operation including: security check information,resource mapping, and rules address translation information. The PCHpoints to the Global/Local Address Translation (GLAT) table. Based onthe GLAT information, the CU performs the rule address translationrequired to translate between the global addresses of the rules in mainmemory and the local addresses of the rules in the local memory. This isdescribed in more detail infra. Both the GLAT information and the PCHinformation are loaded by the upload manager software prior to runningthe search command.

Once the CU has sufficient information (e.g., input data, input status,input state) required to start the search operation, it arbitratesthrough the Xbar to obtain a search engine (i.e. lane). The algorithmengine comprises a plurality (e.g., four) of physical lanes. In oneembodiment, the search operation requires two cycles per input byte, onefor rules SRAM read and the other for the next rule address calculation.In general, the search pipe may be short or longer than two cycles. ThePMA uses a pipeline allowing the physical lane to run two independentlogical lanes pipelined on the physical lane. Each logical lane runs asearch command controlled by a CU. The operation of each one of thelogical lanes in the physical lanes is independent. A CU operating ontwo searches may be connected to two logical lanes (either on the samephysical lane or on different lanes) at the same time.

Each lane comprises a classifier table 262 and a plurality of searchengines 264 (e.g., four). The classifier table adds a class value toevery input byte that will be processed by the search engine. Eachsearch engine 264 (also referred to as a search engine) comprises aprogrammable state machine which lies at the heart of the searchalgorithm.

When a match is found, match reporting is performed by writing thematching rule state and the current position in the input stream to thematch result entry in the output buffer. A Local Result Processor (LRP)logic circuit 266 is associated with each logical lane. The LRP receivesand executes commands from the search engines during the searchoperation. The LRP commands represent simpler portions of complexregular expressions. The LRP analyses the complete match results for thesearch thereby assisting the lane to process complicated regularexpression patterns.

Every search engine is connected to two rules banks. In one exampleembodiment, each rule bank comprises 16K bytes of SRAM, although anysuitable memory size may be used. Each bank holds local rules preloadedby the upload manager software in a local rules cache as well ashardware managed rules cache. The content of the local rules cache canbe dynamically updated by the upload manager during run time when addingor removing pattern context sets or to optimize the rule organizationfor better performance of the PMA.

At the end of the search operation, the PMA writes back status to thestatus block and optionally notifies the software by interrupt, flagwrite, or any other suitable means. The status block indicates thecompletion status of the search command and the number of the matchesfound.

The output buffers are pointed to by the application search command.Match reports are written to the output buffer pointed to by theapplication search command. In one embodiment, a single output buffer isshared by both search commands in the search command. In this case, thematch reports in the output buffer comprise a field indicating whichsearch command produced the match report. Alternatively, the applicationsearch command may specify separate output buffers for each searchcommand.

With reference to FIG. 15, the Status Block 314 is the control structurethat holds the final status of the request and gets written when the PMAhas completed the execution of the search command. The state block 316is used to pass search state information from one application searchcommand to another, in the case where the PMA processed a continuousmode search command. The PMA uses the state block to maintain the stateof the search operation at the end of the application search command andto allow the next search in the session to restore the search state.

A diagram illustrating interleaved continuous sessions is shown in FIG.17. In continuous mode the scan state is saved to the state block andrestored from the state block by the PMA. In one embodiment, theapplication search command for different sessions can be interleavedinto a single stream of packets that is forwarded to the PMA hardware.The PMA hardware stores the state in the state block at the end ofapplication search command processing and restores the state from thestate block when the next application search command of the same sessionis processed. Note that in FIG. 17, session A is denoted by no hatching,session B by forward hatching and session C by backward hashing.

As shown in FIG. 18, the state block 332 is defined as an offset fromthe status block 330 and all application search commands in the samesession use the same status block 330. Depending on their positionwithin a session, continuous mode search commands may need to readsearch state, write search state, or both. The continuous mode indicatorin the application search command identifies the required continuousmode operation. The first search command in a session only writes thestate block. A search command in the middle of a session both reads andwrites the state block. The last search command in a session only readsthe state block. Non-continuous searches, also indicated by thecontinuous-mode indicator, neither read nor write the state block. Thestate block need not be present for non-continuous searches.

The sequence numbers in the application search commands within a sessioncomprise consecutive numbers. The hardware uses the sequence number tocheck that the application search commands arrive in the correct orderand for restarting search commands following certain error conditions,such as output buffer overflow.

A continuous mode application search command can be in one of the threepositions in a session: first, middle or last. The first position is thefirst application search command in the session. There is no previousstate in the state block that has to be loaded. At the end of theapplication search command processing, the accelerator performs thefollowing operations: (1) write the search state to the state block; and(2) update the status block with the application search command sequencenumber (as read from the application search command) and the completionstatus.

A middle application search command is an application search commandwithin the session's sequence of continuous mode search commands. At thebeginning of the application search command processing, the acceleratorperforms the following operations: (1) the accelerator reads the statefrom the state block; and (2) the status block is read and checked tosee if the previous command was successfully completed and if thesequence number in the status is equal to the current command sequencenumber (as indicated in the application search command) minus one. Ifthe status block checking does not pass successfully, the currentapplication search command is purged without executing the applicationsearch command. At the end of the application search command processingthe accelerator performs the following operations: (1) write an updatedstate block; (2) update the status block with the application searchcommand sequence number (as read from the application search command)and the completion status.

The last application search command is the last search command in asession. At the beginning of the application search command processingthe accelerator performs the following operations: (1) the acceleratorreads the state from the state block at the beginning of the processing;(2) the status block is read and checked similarly to a middle searchcommand. At the end of the application search command processing theaccelerator performs the following operation: (1) update the statusblock with the application search command sequence number (as read fromthe application search command) and the completion status.

Note that multiple application search commands from differentapplications can be interleaved and that all application search commandsof the same session are posted in order and arrive at the accelerator inorder.

The application search command will now be described in more detail. Theapplication search command provides the following information to theaccelerator: (1) Pattern Context ID (PCID)—the pattern contextcontaining the patterns to search for; (2) Source Data—the data bytes tobe searched, preferably the address of the data and length (PMA may alsosupport searching multiple discontinuous regions); (3) Continuous SearchMode—non-continuous, first, middle, last; (4) continuous mode sequencenumber; and (5) match report output buffer location and size. Note thatfor middle and last continuous search, the search state at the end ofthe prior search in the session is also provided.

The accelerator performs the search as directed and returns thefollowing information: (1) Completion Status—an indication that theaccelerator completed the request, and preferably along with an errorindicator; (2) Match Reports—a list of all matches found, including thenumber of match reports. For first and middle continuous search, thesearch state at the end of the prior search is also returned.

The application search command comprises the pattern context IDdirectly, an address and length of source data, the continuous mode, theaddress and size of a match report buffer (or buffers) and the addressof the status block. The PMA writes matches into the match report bufferas the search progresses. If the match buffer overflows, the searchstops and an error is reported. Upon completion, the PMA writescompletion status and the number of match reports to the status block.

A state block holds the search state for continuous searches. The stateblock is located at a fixed known offset from the status block. Thiseliminates the need for sending an additional pointer as part of thesearch command. The search state is loaded from the state block at thestart of the middle and last continuous mode searches and saved to thesame state block at the end of the first and middle continuous modesearches. The same status block/state block construct is used for anentire continuous session. Note that two or more searches can be storedin a single application search command. This allows the source data tobe read in once for both searches when the searches are to be performedon the same data.

Regarding application search command ordering and hazard detection, theCQM maintains the ordering between continuous mode application searchcommands of the same session The CQM checks if an application searchcommand loads the same state block that a previous application searchcommand, still in process, is yet to write. In this case, it stalls thesecond application search command until the prior application searchcommand has written the search state. Other, unrelated applicationsearch commands are allowed to proceed. Once all hazards for a pendingapplication search command have been cleared, the application searchcommand can be routed to any CU independent of the CU that processed theearlier application search command.

As an optimization, search state information may be passed directly fromone search command to the next in the session inside the PMA, withoutwriting the search state out to memory, and then immediately reading itback in. In this embodiment, it is preferable to keep the search statewithin the CU, in which case the dependent search command issues to thesame CU as the prior search command in the session.

Control application commands from the upload manager are processedindependently of application search commands. For simplicity sake, thePMA processes a single control application command at a time andtherefore a complete ordering is guaranteed for the execution of thecontrol application commands. Therefore, detecting the completion of onecontrol application command indicates that all previous applicationcommands have completed as well, thereby simplifying the upload managersoftware.

Two hazards may stall control application commands once they arrive atthe PMA: a Write PCH hazard and a continuous mode hazard. The Write PCHhazard exists between Write PCH control commands and application searchcommands. A Write PCH command cannot update the PCH memory while asearch command that uses the same PCH (i.e. pattern context) is beingprocessed by any of the command units. The upload manager handler (UMH)unit in the PMA stalls the execution of the Write PCH command until allsearch commands that indicated the same PCH are complete. Conversely,once a Write PCH command reaches the head of the control command queue,the Command Queue Manager will not allow any new application searchcommands that use the same PCH to begin execution until the Write PCHcommand is complete. Application search commands that are not related tothe PCH that is to be updated are not stalled.

Pattern Matching Accelerator Algorithm Engine

The algorithm engine (AE) 234 (FIG. 14) in the PMA is the logical unitthat performs the actual search operation. The AE receives commandparameters and state information from the command units (CU). MultipleCUs can be connected to the AE and execute their search command at thesame time. The CUs are connected to the AE through the crossbar (e.g.,Xbar). A CU also provides a stream of input characters on which the AEruns the pattern matching algorithm. The AE returns search results tothe CU following every match found. When required, the AE returns to theCU a state at the end of the search. In one example embodiment, the AEcomprises four similar entities that execute the search, each referredto as a lane. The lane comprises the following main building blocks: (1)control logic which functions to handle the interface to the commandunits through the crossbar (Xbar); (2) classifier which generates theclass information for the input character; (3) search engine which isthe core component of the algorithm engine that performs the search(there are multiple search engines in a lane (e.g., four), each coupledto memory that hold the search rules, i.e. the output of the compiler);and (4) Local Result Processor (LRP) that combines intermediate searchresults from the search engines in the lane.

The pattern context set defined by the user is compiled by the patterncompiler into a rule structure which the PMA hardware is able toexecute. During a search operation on the input character stream, eachsearch engine processes two rule lines per input character byte. Toenable a fast processing rate, PMA comprises a local memory (e.g., SRAM)that allows memory access within one cycle. The size of the memory isimplementation dependent.

A diagram illustrating the organization of the pattern context rules isshown in FIG. 19. Note that the organization shown in an example as therule may be organized differently in accordance with the particularimplementation. With reference to FIG. 19, the pattern context rules 259are organized in lines 358, referred to as rule lines. Each rule line358 comprises a plurality of rules 359 (e.g., three). The set of rulelines accessible by a single search engine state are known as a cluster.In an example embodiment, each cluster occupies between 16B and 2K bytesof memory. Clusters may be discontinuous and the size and location of acluster is determined by the search engine state ID and mask, asdescribed in detail infra. The clusters are further organized in clustertables 354, also referred to as “tables”, which have a fixed size.Multiple tables form a group 352 stored in memory 350.

Each rule is used to calculate the address of the next rule based on thevalue of the new byte from the input stream. A rule includes a clustertable ID, a pointer which points to the cluster table containing therules of the next state. A rule can point to a rule set of a next statein the same table or to a rule in a different table. The compiler placesthe clusters such that a pattern context has only one cluster percluster table.

Tables are stored consecutively in memory by ID. The address of thefirst table, Table 0, in a pattern context is stored in the PatternContext Header (PCH). Each of the four search engines uses a differentset of tables in memory, and has a different address for Table 0.

The search operation requires access to the rules every processedcharacter. Therefore, fast access to the rules is preferable to achievehigh search bandwidth. In one example embodiment, the PMA access rulesevery second cycle. In a first cycle, the rule is processed and in asecond cycle, the new rule line is read. Both cycles are required forthe processing of a single character. The total size of rules requiredto achieve particular system level requirements may be many megabytes.To handle such large rule sets, the search engine uses a caching schemeto keep frequently-accessed rules in a local memory within each searchengine of the PMA unit.

With reference to FIGS. 12 and 14, as described supra, the local memorycache is divided into a software managed portion 194 and a hardwaremanaged portion 192: The software managed cache is referred to as thelocal rule area and the rules contained therein are local rules. Theupload manager software functions to place the most frequently accessedrules in the local rule area, based on statistical profiling of ruleaccess patterns. Run time profiling is performed by the upload manager258 using hardware programmable performance counters 268. The uploadmanage initializes the memory at the search start and may update therules in the memory during run time.

The hardware-managed cache is referred to as the temporary rule area andthe rules contained therein are temporary rules. With reference to theflow diagram in FIG. 20, when the search engine attempts to access arule (step 370) which is not found in the local memory (step 371), itchecks if the rule is in the hardware managed cache (i.e. temporary rulecache) (step 372). If the rule is not found (i.e. a miss) (step 376) thehardware fetches the rule from the main memory and places it in thetemporary area cache (step 378). If the rule was found in the local areacache (step 371), the rule is read from local memory (i.e. local ruleare cache) (step 374). Note that the PMA knows whether the rule is inthe software managed cache or not in accordance with a global/local flagincluded as part of the rule addressing.

A block diagram illustrating the dual rule bank scheme of the searchengine memory cache is shown in FIG. 21. In one example embodiment, eachsearch engine 330 comprises search engine logic 332 and a local rulesarea divided into two banks, i.e. Bank 0 334 and Bank 1 336. The localrule area requires no tags.

In an example embodiment, the temporary rule area comprises memorydivided into two banks 338, 340. Each bank is managed as a two-wayassociative cache. It is appreciated that other memory bank managementschemes can be used with the present invention.

The contents of each block in the temporary rule area are identified bya set of tags 342, 344, one tag for each group of blocks. A replacementpolicy decides which of the blocks in a set are replaced when a newblock is to be brought in. The well known least recently used (LRU)scheme is used by the PMA unit. The tags also comprise a valid bit, asblocks may contain no data. Tags are invalid at system initialization,and the upload manager may explicitly invalidate tags following uploadmanager's changes in the rules. Note that the upload manager keeps therules updated in the main memory following a change of the rules loadedin the local store. This requires a flush of the old rules which mightnot be updated from the cache, wherein the upload manager uses the Taginvalidation indication.

If the rule is found in the local memory in either the local rule areaor the temporary rule area, the rule line is returned in the next cycle.If, however, the rule is not found in the temporary area (i.e. a miss) ablock is fetched from main memory (i.e. non local area 346), incurring aperformance penalty.

In the case of a miss, the lane returns the state to the search unit 250(FIG. 14) (a part of the command unit 246) and is de-allocated (thesearch state of the lane is saved in the search unit). Once available,the lane can proceed to process an input character stream from differentsearch units (SU). The SU re-arbitrates for the lane only after itfetches the missed rule cache line. Once the SU wins the arbitration tothe lane, it loads its state and the missed rule cache line and proceedswith the search. This method allows efficient use of lane resources atthe time of a miss, reducing the effective performance penalty ofmisses.

The rule read miss process is described as follows. The initial ruleaddress is loaded from the PCH. The PCH holds an Initial Rule Table ID(which is identical for all four search engines) and a value of the rulemask per search engine.

In the example embodiment presented herein, the search engine comprisestwo memory banks. The banks are referred as Bank 0 (334) and Bank 1(336). Both memory banks are identical in their structure. The two banksare accessed simultaneously on each search engine cycle. For eachpattern context, one bank holds the transition rules and the other bankholds the default rules. Assignment of the transition rules to aspecific bank is defined in the PCH per pattern context. Transitionrules generally occupy more memory space than the default rules. Theupload manager is capable of placing rules either in Bank 0 or Bank 1 soas to balance the data storage across the two banks.

Thus, the rule cache incorporated in the search engine comprises thefollowing features: (1) a hybrid hardware/software-managed cachesolution; (2) the software portion of the cache, called the local area,is controlled by the upload manger background process which continuouslyoptimizes the use of the software portion in an intelligent way, e.g.,using profiling; (3) the upload manager uses profile information todetermine which rules are accessed most frequently, and should thereforebe placed in the local area; (4) when rules are placed in the localarea, their address changes whereby all rules that reference them areupdated to point to the new local address, making look-ups fast andtag-free; and (5) translation between local and global addresses areused to make management of the local area transparent to the application(described in more detail infra).

Note that in the case of the PMA every rule is in essence a branch. Inthe general case we may assume blocks of rules without branching andbranch commands. The search engine can read multiple rules (e.g.,three), from each bank during each cycle.

A described supra, the local area is managed by the upload manager whichruns in its own thread and continuously monitors rule usage, shufflingstates in and out of the local area to optimize performance. Theapplication that is currently performing scanning is oblivious to theupload manager process. This allows the upload manager to optimizeperformance freely, without explicitly interacting with the application.

To place rules in the local area, the following steps are performed: (1)software (e.g., upload manager or other entity) determines which rulesare most frequently accessed and therefore beneficial to place in thelocal area; (2) software performs a placement algorithm to optimallypack the frequently accessed rules into the local rule area; (3)software copies the rules from system memory to the local rule area; (4)any rules that point to the local rules must be updated to point to thenew location in the local rule area, rather than the old location insystem memory; and (5) address translation is performed to make thesoftware management transparent to the application (described in moredetail infra).

The efficiency of the upload manager depends on how frequently the setof most frequently used rules changes and what portion of it changes. Ifthe used rule image is changed slowly, the upload manager changes thelocal rules slowly, or may even keep it unchanged.

A rule in the temporary rule memory might point to a global rule or to alocal rule. Once the upload manager updates the rules in the local rulesarea, the temporary rules might become invalid and need to be updated.The upload manager invalidates the portions of the temporary rules areathat might hold invalid rules. This operation can also invalidate validentries in the cache. In this case, the rules will be reloaded in thefuture by the cache logic.

The upload manager can use the Flush Temporary Rule application searchcommand to invalidate specific entries in the tag. The command canselect the banks to flush. One, several or all the banks within thelane's search engines can be flushed. According to the enable flag inthe command, either all the entries in the selected banks areinvalidated, or only the entry pointed by the tag hash value specifiedin the command is invalidated. The command can also select certaingroups of tables to be flushed.

The search engine performs three serialized operations for eachcharacter scanned: (1) reading search engine rules based on the currentsearch engine state and character; (2) matching rules against the inputcharacter or class; and (3) computing the next search engine state.Steps 2 and 3 are designed to be simple and fast to execute in hardware.It is preferable that reading the rules be as fast as possible. Toachieve this goal, each search engine comprises a fast SRAM memorydivided into two regions: (1) the local area containing rules fixed inplace by the upload manager; and (2) the temporary area, ahardware-managed cache of global rules.

If the search engine needs a local rule, it looks directly in the fastSRAM at the known location. If the search engine needs a global rule, itlooks for it in the temporary area. The temporary area resides in thesame physical SRAM as the local rules and can be accessed with the samelatency. If the rule is not found in the temporary area, it is broughtin to the temporary area from the system main memory.

A block diagram illustrating one rule bank of the search engine memorycache in more detail is shown in FIG. 22. The search engine rule bank,generally referenced 350, comprises two memory blocks 360, 362 (e.g.,SRAM 0 and SRAM 1), search engine logic 352, tag block 354, selectcircuit 356 and multiplexer 358.

It is noted that only the temporary area requires tags. The tag lookupand compare is shown for a two-way set-associative temporary area. Bothways are read from the temporary area in parallel with tag lookup andcompare. Upon a tag hit, the correct way is late-selected. Because thetag array is small, it can be constructed out of latches to reducelatency, allowing the tag read and compare to occur in one cycle.

Part of the search engine state comprises a global/local flag whichinforms the search engine whether the current state is in the local areaor not. If a state is local, all the rules associated with that statemust be in the local area. A single state may comprise from 1 to 256rules. For local states, the search engine state directly indicates thephysical location of the rules in the local area. Hence, local area lookup is simple, fast and tag-free. For global rules, the temporary area isindexed using a hash function. The tags are used to determine if thedesired rules are actually in the temporary area.

In the example embodiment presented herein, two cycles of the searchengine logic are needed to process a single character: a memory readcycle and a computation cycle. Every physical lane comprises four searchengines which are time multiplexed between two logical lanes (i.e. thememory (e.g., SRAM) is read every cycle, every other cycle per eachsearch engine on the logical lanes). Due to timing constraints, theaddress is latched into the memory at the beginning of the cycle and theaddress at the output of the memory is latched on the next cycle.Therefore, the processing of the memory output until a new address isready is performed in a single cycle.

The address generation based on the input character is fed to the memory360, 362 in both banks 350, 359. In each bank, the contents of one ofthe memories is selected. If it is a local rule, the selection is madeaccording to the rule address. If the rule is a global rule, the memoryselection is done according to the Tag match results. The PCH 351 tellswhich bank holds the transition rules and which bank holds the defaultrules for the specific PCH. Both banks can hold either transition ordefault rules.

The data from the memory is used by the search engine logic, whichdetermines the matching rule with the highest priority and generates thenext rule address. The search engine logic also drives the LRP commandof the winning rule to the LRP. The search engine logic generates twoaddresses: one for the transition rule bank and the other for thedefault rule bank. The information from the PCH controls the outputmultiplexer to send the transition rule address and the default ruleaddress to the correct bank.

Global/local address translation will now be described in more detail.As described supra, the local rule area has no tags. When rules areplaced in the local rule area, all rules that refer or point to thoserules are updated to refer directly to the location of the local rule inthe local rule area.

A rule points to the next rule set by defining the next table ID, nextstate and next mask. An explicit local/global bit in each rule indicatesif the next table is a local table (found in the local area) or a globaltable (found in global memory) accessed through the temporary area. Ifthe next table is local, it refers to a specific physical location inthe local area in the search engine cache memory. The search enginereads the rules found at that location. Hence, the local area needs notags to determine if the needed rules are available.

The upload manager can select any local table as the new location of agiven global table. It can also add constants to the state IDs, allowingsmall tables to be shifted in the local table. This gives the uploadmanager great freedom in placing rules in the local area. As a result,the local rule area behaves similarly to a fully-associative cache.

The rule's original addressing, as defined in the rule's address in themain memory is referred to as a global (i.e. logical) address. Theaddress of the rules in the local memory is referred to as a local (i.e.to the search engine) address. All rules have a global address, but onlyrules placed in the local rule area have a local address. The globaladdress is invariant over the life of the pattern context. The localaddress, however, is transitory. The upload manager may change the localaddress of rules over the life of a pattern context. When the uploadmanager places a rule in the local rule area it updates the value of thelocal/global bit, the next table ID and the next state in all the rulespointing to rules in the local store. These modified rules may be inglobal memory or the local area.

The upload manager can change the contents of the local area,dynamically rewriting rules as necessary, asynchronously with theapplication. In order to make this process transparent to theapplication, a mechanism ensures that the application does not seechanging rule addresses, in the form of changing table IDs or states.Therefore, match results are always reported back to the applicationusing global addresses. Similarly, the search state is stored usingglobal addresses. When restoring a state, the addresses in the state aretranslated back from global to local, based on the current local areacontents.

The translation is controlled by the upload manager using the GlobalLocal Address Translation (GLAT) table. The content of the GLAT isloaded by the upload manager and is updated by the upload managerwhenever local rules allocation is changed.

A diagram illustrating the global/local address translation is shown inFIG. 23. In the example translation scheme presented, generallyreferenced 380, a single GLAT index 384 is provided for each searchengine. Per each search engine, the PCH also indicates the number ofGLAT entries for the banks of the search engines. All the GLAT entriesare located in a single table (i.e. the GLAT table) 386. Each GLAT entry388 comprises the information required for the global

local address translation, described below. In addition, locations areexpressed in terms of table ID and chunk mask. A table illustrating theglobal/local address translation is presented below.

Global/Local Address Translation Direction of Translated WhenTranslation Case Operation Translation Fields Translator Happen? 1 LoadState Global -> BFSM # RegX hardware During CRB state initializationLocal Table ID When loading a state If the GroupID is as the DH Table IDof a continuous search GroupID in the PCH and DH State from the CPB.there is matching TableID in Current State the related GLAT entries. ANDChunk Mask checking is OK. 2 Load Init Rule Global -> BFSM # RegXhardware During CRB state initialization. Local Table ID Whenever startprocessing Current State a new CRB. 3 Store State Local -> BFSM # RegXhardware At the end of CRB processing. Global Table ID When storing astate When the G/L bit in the DH Table ID of a continuous search stateis set. DH State to the CPB. Current State 4 Report Match Local -> BFSM# RegX hardware Following every match Global Table ID At every write ofreporting. Current State match result. When the G/L bit in the state isset.

The rule translation from a global address to a local address is doneper cluster table 390, as shown in FIG. 24. This allows the uploadmanager the freedom to place the cluster anywhere inside the localmemory regardless of its global address (which was defined by thecompiler).

The translation is defined per cluster and comprises two parts: (1)translating the table ID wherein the table ID in the rule or state isconverted from the global to local; and (2) shifting the cluster insidethe cluster table which allows replacement of the cluster inside byadding an offset to the line address. The following fields aretranslated: (1) cluster ID; and (2) current state.

The GLAT table stores the information required to carry out the addresstranslation. The GLAT table memory is implemented as a memory area(e.g., SRAM) inside the PMA. The content of the GLAT is loaded by theupload manager using the Write GLAT application search command command.In one embodiment, the GLAT table stores 4096 GLAT entries (two byteseach entry). Each GLAT entry defines the local area location of a globaltable, or pieces of a global table.

Each GLAT entry holds the following fields: (1) global table IDindicating the global table ID of the table placed in the local area;(2) local table ID indicating the local table in the local area thatholds the local rules; (3) chunk mask which comprises a 4-bit value thatdefines which portions of the global table have been placed in the localarea; and (4) state shift which indicates how the local rules have beenshifted relative to their original location in the global table.

Every PCH points to a set of translation entries inside the GLAT tableby an Address Translation Base parameter in the PCH. Each PCH definesthe number of translation bank entries and the number of default bankentries per search engine. Only tables that have some rules in the localarea need a GLAT entry.

Note that address translation is performed for the transition rules bankand default rules bank separately using the GLAT entries associated witheach bank. All the translation entries of a pattern context are locatedin one continuous group pointed to by the PCH.

At the beginning of application search command processing, the commandunit (CU) loads the translation information from the GLAT table. The CUholds a decompressed representation of the compression informationallowing a faster translation of state and match reports.

Note also that address translation is performed only for the globaltable ID values referred by the GLAT entries associated with the searchengine for the given PCH. The dual hash (described in more detail infra)and the initial state are translated using the default rules bank GLATentries. The state is translated using the transition rule bank GLATentries, unless it is an initial state (which is translated using thedefault rule bank entries). The initial state table ID is read from thePCH. The initial state global state value is next state Invalid. Thetable ID in the state should be equal to the table ID in one of therelated GLAT entries, otherwise the state remains global. Addresstranslation is performed only if the chunk mask checking passedsuccessfully, otherwise, the global address is maintained.

Address translation is performed as follows; (1) the global table ID (5bits) is replaced with the local table ID; (2) upper bits of the nextstate, which are not used in calculating the address of rules within atable, are unchanged; (3) the value of the state shift is added to thevalue of the lower bits of the next state, carry bit is ignored; and (4)the global/local bit is set to indicate a local rule.

Local to global address translation is performed when the global/localbit on the rule in the search engine is set indicating that it is alocal rule. The address translation includes: (1) the local table ID isreplaced with the global table ID; (2) upper bits of the next state,which are not used in calculating the address of rules within a table,are unchanged; and (3) the value of the state shift is subtracted fromthe value of the lower bits of the next state, carry bit is ignored.

The chunk mask is a mechanism that allows locking of a partial clusterinto the Locked memory (e.g., SRAM). It allows only the more frequentlyused areas in big clusters to be locked without the need to also lockleast recently used parts of the cluster. This enables significant areasavings for large clusters. Part of the rule can point to a localaddress only if all the rules pointed by this rule are in the lockedstate.

To obtain a better level of efficiency in the placement of the code, thePMA hardware allows dynamic mapping of the global search engine number(i.e. the number of the search engine as defined by the compiler) andthe local search engine (i.e. the one used in the hardware). This allowsthe upload manager software to achieve a better balancing on the usageof the search engine storage.

The search engine number is mapped from a global search engine number toa local search engine number and from a local search engine number backto a global search engine number according to the search engine mappingfield in the PCH. search engine mapping allows a higher level offlexibility for the upload manager rule placement by mapping. Thepattern compiler sets the global search engine enumeration. Using thetrivial mapping search engine 0 on the compiler output uses searchengine 0 in the hardware, search engine 1 on the compiler output usessearch engine 1 in the hardware, and so one. The upload manager usessearch engine mapping to place (i.e. replace or move) rules which arelogically assigned to a specific global search engine to a differentphysical search engine on which more free local rule area space isavailable. All the fields in the search engine mapping field in the PCHand in the GLAT entries refer to the logical search engine.

The initial rule is used for access to the set of default rules. Thedefault rules can either be locked or unlocked. Note that in most casesthe default rules are locked. To provide flexibility in the placement ofthe initial rule inside the locked memory, the initial rule address istranslated using a GLAT entry (if the related entry is in the GLAT),just like any other state.

The initial rule address is loaded from the PCH. The PCH holds aninitial rule table ID (which is identical for all four search engines)and a value of the rule mask per search engine. The initial rule'scurrent state is assumed to be all zeros for all four search engines.

A memory miss occurs when a required rule is not in the rule cache. Asingle search engine can have up to two misses per byte searched, a misson the transition rule and a miss on the default rule. When there is amiss on both default and transition rules, the hardware reads the twocache lines in one miss operation. In this case, it is possible thatonce the rules from one bank are returned from memory, the rules fromthe other search engine bank have been replaced and cause a new miss. Ifthis occurs repeatedly, the search engine enters a livelock situationand will not make forward progress. To resolve this, the search enginefetches rules for both banks, even though one bank is already in thetemporary area. Other possible solutions include using a special lockingmechanism to ensure that rules are not replaced, and to process allrules that are available prior to the miss, and store the results of therule selection as intermediate results.

With reference to FIG. 25, the order of handling a miss operation is asfollows. The state of the last processed character is saved from thelane to the search unit (step 660). The state does not need to betranslated from local to global in this case. The search operation isstalled and the lane is released (step 662). The search unit reads therule cache block(s) containing the missing rules from main memory (step664). The method then waits for the rule cache line(s) to be read frommain memory (step 666) and then arbitrates for a lane (step 668). Therule cache lines are loaded into the temporary rules memory cache (step670) and the state from the search unit is restored back to the lane(step 672). The character that caused the miss on the search engine isreprocessed (or those search engines) that experienced a miss (step 674)and normal searching continues (step 676).

On a miss, the state of the search engine is kept in the search unit andthe lane is freed back to the pool. Disengaging the logical lane fromthe SU following a miss, allows other SUs to use the lane, resulting inbetter performance. The state stored is the state from the lastsuccessful access to the rule cache (access to a locked rule or hit onthe temporary rule cache). The state for the missed search enginecomprises the state of the character previous to the one that caused themiss.

Each of the four search engines may have a miss on the default rules,the transition rules, or both. Hence, the search unit may handle up toeight misses in parallel for a single character. If a search engineexperiences no rule misses, the search state saved to the SU is thestate after the character. These search engines will not reprocess thecharacter that caused the miss(es). If a search engine experienced amiss on the transition rule side, the state saved to the SU is thesearch engine state prior to the character. If the search engineexperienced a miss only on the default rule side, the state saved is anintermediate state, resulting from the processing of the transitionrules only, not the default rules. The final search engine state can becomputed from this intermediate state once the default rules areavailable.

If there is one or more local result processor (LRP) commands associatedwith the byte that caused the miss the LRP commands are stored in the SUas part of the search context. The SU can hold all the LRP commands.Sending the LRP information to the SU costs additional Xbar cycles perLRP command to transfer the additional state information in eachdirection.

After reading the missing rule cache line, the CU arbitrates for a lane.Once the lane is granted the temporary area is loaded with the new rulecache line and then the search state is loaded. Only the search engineswith the miss process the first character following a miss, as othersearch engines processed that character prior to the miss.

Note that it is possible that once C2 is calculated on search engine 2there will be a miss on other search engines. In this case as well, thestate is related to the last character that was successfully processedby the search engine.

The search engine comprises two engines: a transition side and a defaultside. Each side accesses the local memory for every input character andmay experience a cache miss. The following cases can occur inside asearch engine:

-   -   Case A: Both transition and default sides of the search engine        have a hit on the local storage, either the locked rule or        temporary rule. This is the trivial case and the normal        operation.    -   Case B: One side (transition or default) has a hit on a locked        rule and the other side has a miss.    -   Case C: One side has hit on a rule in the temporary area and the        other side has a miss.    -   Case D: Both sides have a miss (need to read two cache line        rules from the memory).

Note that in case B it is guaranteed that the locked rule stays inmemory (rule placement is not changed during the PCH processing). Incase C, it might be that by the time the missing rule is loaded from theSearch Unit the rule in the temporary area is replaced. That can cause alive lock scenario on continuous misses when the search engine cannotget a miss on both rules. To resolve this, the PMA reads both rules.Alternatively, both rules are read only if the search engine failed thefirst time. Therefore, in cases C and D above, both rule lines (for thetwo sides of the search engine) are loaded together. The search unitwithin the command unit reads two rules cache lines from main memory.Once both rules are placed in local storage the search unit arbitratesfor the lane. Once the search unit is reengaged with the lane, it writesboth rules cache lines to the lane and continues the search. The searchengine sends both read requests for the two cache lines back-to-back.

The space available for locked rules affects the performance of the PMA.While the upload manager defines the set of rules that should be lockedin the local rules cache memory for best performance, the PMA hardwaresupplies a wide set of mechanism that allows efficient rules placementin the rules cache. Rules placement is performed on a per PCH basis andallows dynamic updates by the upload manger during run time.

An example of the tools available to the upload manager include: (1)selecting the bank for the transition rules; (2) global table ID tolocal table ID mapping; (3) state offset in the local storage; (4)placement of clusters inside the local table using the local addressextended bit (E bit); (5) global to local search engine mapping; (6)search engine enable; and (7) placement of a rule in more than onephysical lane.

As described supra in connection with FIG. 10, the search enginearchitecture implements a pattern search based on a programmable statemachine. The search engine is implemented in hardware (or alternatively,software or a combination of hardware and software) and the transitionrules are loaded from the memory (either local or remote). The rulesdefine the transitions based on the input character causing the searchengine to compute a new state following every rule. A more detaileddescription of the operation of the search engine can be found in U.S.Patent Publication 2005/0132342, to Van Lunteren, published Jun. 16,2005, entitled “Pattern-Matching System” (which describes the operationof a pattern searching FSM) and in U.S. Patent Publication 2007/0124146,to Van Lunteren, published May 31, 2007, entitled “Pattern Detection”(which describes the operation of a pattern searching BFSM) both ofwhich are incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

The structure of a rule will now be described in more detail. A diagramillustrating the structure of an example rule is shown in FIG. 26. In anexample embodiment, each rule line, generally referenced 392, comprisesa plurality of bytes (or bits) in the rules memory and stores multiplerules 395, 396, 397 (e.g., three in this example). Each of the threerules comprises a plurality of bits. An effective rule encoding allowsto pack all basic fields within a rule in a storage-efficient way, whilealso providing a way to extend rules that need more fields orinformation.

In addition to the three rules, a shared field 394 (also referred to asa shared command field) holds information shared by all the rules in therule line. The shared field can have a meaning of dual hash, a localresult processor (LRP) instruction or an extended address. In the caseof dual hash, the format of the shared field 394, shown in FIG. 27A,comprises a table address 391 and a global/local flag 404. In the caseof a LRP instruction, the format of the shared field 394, shown in FIG.27B, comprises an instruction vector 393. In the case of an extendedaddress, the format of the shared field 394, shown in FIG. 27C,comprises one or more group IDs 399. The extended address allows thesearch engine to switch to a different group. This enables to scalebeyond the maximum number of states and rules that can be supportedwithin a single group.

The two least significant bits of the rule line may indicate that therule line holds less than three rules allowing the addition of ruleextension information to either one or both rules. The extended ruleinformation is used in most cases as a command to the local resultprocessor (LRP). A diagram illustrating the structure of a rule linewith extended rules is shown in FIG. 28.

A diagram illustrating the structure of an individual rule in moredetail is shown in FIG. 29. The rules comprise two portions: (1) a testportion 400 comprising a test to see if there is a match to the currentrule; and (2) a result portion 402 which defines the next state targetedby this rule. The next state is kept as the new search engine state andused to generate the address of the new rule based on the nextcharacter.

The initial rule is the base rule that points to the root of the rulestree. The initial rule is used when starting a search or whenever thesearch returns to its initial state. The initial rule is used inparallel to the transition rules read to find the default ruleassociated with every input character. The source of the initial ruleaddress is in the PCH. This address undergoes GLAT translation in thecommand unit prior to being sent to the search engine. The translationconverts the initial rule global address as presented in the PCH to alocal address.

When the search engine is searching for the first character matching(either at the beginning of a new search, or during a search when nomatch is found), the search engine is kept in the initial state. In theinitial state, only the initial rule is used and the transition rulesare ignored. The search engine avoids reading the transition rules inthis case. That allows memory read power to be saved when searching forthe beginning of a pattern.

The PMA comprises the ability to specify a character class in a rule inplace of the normal input condition for testing the current inputcharacter. For example in rule R2 (FIG. 7) the input is the letter “t”.A character classifier 262 (FIG. 14) characterizes the byte in the inputstream and the default rule or transition rule used by the search enginemay test the provided character class information of the input characterrather than the actual input character. Examples of character classesinclude: (1) \d numeric (“digit”); (2) \D not numeric; (3) \walphanumeric; (4) \W not alphanumeric; (5) \s whitespace (space,carriage return, tab, new line, form feed); and (6) \S not whitespace.These operators can be specified in the default and transition rulesinstead of the wildcard of rule R2 or the specified input conditions ofthe other rules.

With reference to FIG. 30, in one embodiment, the classifier comprises aclassification look up table (LUT) 410 and associated logic circuitrythat functions to generate a class vector 412 per each input characterwhich functions as an index into the LUT. Each input character (256options in case the input character is a byte) 414 selects a line in theclassifier table 410. The class vector is output on the fly and input tothe search lane along with the input character. The classifier functionsto provide additional information about the input character to thesearch lane. For example, an input character may be part of the digitclass, alphanumeric class or any other user defined class. Use of theclassification serves to significantly reduce the number of rulesrequired for certain patterns, thus effectively providing a form of‘rule compression’.

In one embodiment, each lane comprises two classifiers. Alternatively,each lane can comprise any number of classifiers depending on theimplementation. The PCH of the pattern context defines which classifieris used. Both virtual lanes can use the same classifier. The classifieris initialized and updated by the upload manager using one or moreupload manager commands. The classifier can be updated during run timeutilizing one of the virtual lanes. Having two classifiers allows apattern context set to be loaded using a new classifier definition whilethe earlier pattern context set is using the other classifier. The twoclassifiers can also be used when different pattern sets (with differentclassifiers) are assigned by the upload manager to use the same physicallane.

A high level block diagram illustrating the structure of the searchengine is shown in FIG. 31. The search engine 430 comprises a ruleselect circuit 434 that received input character and output of theclassifier 432, state register 436 holding the current state vector,address generator 437 and rule memory banks 438.

Regarding the operation of the search engine, for each new character,the search engine generates two new rule addresses: (1) a transitionrule address generated based on the selected rule, the current searchengine state vector and the new input character; and (2) a default ruleaddress generated based on the initial rule and the input characteronly.

The search engine has two main logic portions: (1) rule selection; and(2) address generation. The rule selecting logic 434 comprises fourinputs, including (1) the current search engine state; (2) the rulesread in the previous cycle; (3) the input character; and (4) the classof the input character (output of the classifier logic). The next stateof the selected rule makes up the state definition of the search engine.It is used for the generation of the new rule address.

Address generator 437 functions to generate the addresses for readingthe next rule lines (default and transition). The new address is eithera global address or a local address. Rules with local address are readdirectly from the local rules memory (e.g., SRAM) connected to thesearch engine. Global rules are searched inside the temporary area (i.e.rule memory or cache). If there is a miss on a global rule, the commandunit fetches the rules from main memory.

The search engine reads two new rule lines every cycle: one transitionrule line 433 and one default rule line 431. Each line can hold multiplerules (e.g., three or less in case the line holds an extended rule). Theselection of the rule is also referred to as a hash selection. Note thateach logical search engine reads one character every character cycle.The logical search engine therefore reads the SRAM every second cycle.

In the example embodiment presented herein, a dual rule bank scheme isused whereby one bank holds transition rules and the other rule bankholds default rules. In an alternative embodiment, as shown in FIG. 32,the rule memory scheme, generally referenced 460, comprises a pluralityT of logical transition rule banks 462 and a plurality D of logicaldefault rule banks. The N=T+D logical rule banks are mapped via mappinglogic circuitry 466 to N of a plurality of P physical rule banks 468.This embodiment permits the physical rule banks to hold any number andcombination of logical transition and default rule banks.

The search engine checks for a match in both the transition rule lineand the default rule line. A rule matches if it meets the followingconditions: (1) match on the new character or class vector; and (2) anexact match on the state (referring to the state field within the rulestest part which is only part of the state bits). The first match is madeagainst the bits of the current character field in the new rule. Thetype of the match is defined by the rule type field in the rule. A matchcan be one of the following three types: (1) match on the class; (2)match on the character (either case sensitive or case insensitive); or(3) a “don't care” which always matches on the character checked. Amatch on the character/class can be a positive match or a negated match.Note that a negated match on a “don't care” condition results in a rulethat never matches. This is used to code empty places in the rulesstructure.

The bits in the current state field should exactly match the designated(e.g., the most significant) state bits of the current search enginestate (i.e. the next state of the rule selected in the previous cycle).If more than one rule has a match then the rule with the highestpriority is selected. Rule priority is defined as follows for an exampleembodiment involving three rules in a default rule line and three rulesin a transition rule line:

1. Transition rule 0—highest priority

2. Transition rule 1

3. Transition rule 2 when a rule is present.

4. Default rule 0

5. Default rule 1

6. Default rule 2 when a rule is present—lowest priority

If there is no match on any rule, the initial rule is used to define thenew state.

The next rule address is generated using the next state informationtaken from the result part of the selected rule (or the initial rule):

(next) State

(next) Mask

(next) TableID

(next) Global/Local

In a special case, additional information is taken from a shared commandfield, e.g., group ID, dual hash and extended address.

The next rule line address is generated using the mask to select bitsfrom the (next) state and the (new input) character (Char). In thenormal case there are three transition rules in a line from which thenext rule will be selected (if there is a match on the rule). This isreferred to as a hash. In the dual hash mode a line from the defaultrule bank is used as an extension of the transition rule hash. In thismode, the original set of rules for a given state, can be divided intodisjoint subsets that are mapped independently on the default rule bankand the transition rule bank.

Note that the above description is applicable in the case there are onlytwo rule banks and no dual hash is in use. In the event dual hash isused, the number of transition rules increases to a maximum of six.

The dual hash can be used when no default rule lookup is performed.Three implications of the dual hash include: (1) dual hash can be usedfor any state for which the input values covered by the transition rulesare a super-set of the input values covered by the default rules; (2)the previous coverage can also be enforced by adding the “missing” (i.e.uncovered) input values of one or more default rules to a given state;and (3) dual hash can always be used for anchored matching (after thefirst character). Note that in anchored matching, the default rules areused only for the first character, unless they are used to generate LRPcommands.

The dual hash is initiated for the next state when the shared command inthe rule line indicates a dual hash and the shared command valid bit inthe winning rule is set. In this dual hash mode, the next table ID valueand the next state value for the default rule lookup are selected fromthe table ID and State of the shared command instead of the table ID andstate from the initial rule (which is used for the default rules). Thetransition rule's next state and the mask are used for calculating theaddress of the next transition rule lookup. If there are multiple rulesin a given rule line where each refers to a different dual hash nextstate, then the dual hash rules for these different next states can beorganized in various ways, e.g., being mapped together on a single linewithin the default bank or being separately mapped on multiple lineswithin the default bank. For each of these organizations, e.g., mappedin a single-line manner or multi-line manner, the shared command fieldcomprises all required information for performing independent hashlookups for these rules.

The rule check and selection in the dual hash is identical to theprocess in the normal (i.e. non-dual hash) case. During a cycle on whichthe default side of the search engine is running in a dual hash mode,there is no default rule checking. All rules from both banks (e.g., sixrules) are referred to as transition rules. The rules on the transitionside have higher priority than the rules on the default side (which iscurrently used for the dual hash). In case there is no match on eitherone of the rules, the search engine reverts to the initial state. Formatch result reporting, the “Match Reporting Rule” always indicates thatthe match is reported from a transition rule regardless whether thematching rule was on the transition bank or the default bank. The dualhash state, the dual hash table ID and a valid indication (indicating avalid bit of the dual hash) are maintained in the state block as part ofthe search state.

To illustrate the dual hash mechanism, consider the following examplepattern context comprising four patterns: (1) abc[18]p (“abc”, followedby “1” or “8”, followed by “p”); (2) abc[2A]q (“abc”, followed by “2” or“A” followed by “q”); (3) abc\ds (“abc”, followed by any digit, followedby “s”); and (4) abc[̂4]t (“abc”, followed by any character other than“4”, followed by “t”).

In this example, the dual hash is useful for the state representing“abc” has been found.

Note that any following character represents a continuation of one ofthe four patterns. Default rules are therefore unused in this state. Thefinite state machine representing such a search is shown in FIG. 33. Inthe following example, a transition from a state i to a next state jbased on an input character ‘a’ is represented by

In State 3, the pattern “abc” has been found. Seven transition rulesfrom State 3 lead to six different states. These transition rules coverall characters while default rules are not used. Rule

and rule

match many characters and have a lower priority than the othertransition rules of State 3 which is represented by a dashed line inFIG. 33. A normal transition rule mask-based layout mechanism replicatesthese two rules due to limitations of the search engine hash function.Use of dual hash reduces this unnecessary replication. A transition ruletable generated without dual hash and corresponding to the state diagramof FIG. 33 is presented below.

Transition Rule Table Table Row Rule 0 Rule 1 Rule 2 0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

In this example, the pattern compiler chose a mask of 0011011b andspread the rules across 16 rows. There is no workable mask which mapsthe rules into fewer rows. Note that rules

are replicated numerous times as they apply to a wide range ofcharacters. Thus, they must be placed in every row that handles anycharacters to which the rule applies.

Transition and default rule tables generated with dual hash andcorresponding to the state diagram of FIG. 33 are presented below.

Transition Rule Table Table Row Rule 0 Rule 1 Rule 2 0

1

Default Rule Table Table Row Rule 0 Rule 1 Rule 2 0

Note that in the dual hash case, rules

are placed in the default rule bank covering only one row. The remainingfour rules are placed in two rows in the transition rule bank, using amask of 0000001b chosen by the pattern compiler. Thus, all replicationis eliminated, and as the above tables illustrate, a substantialreduction in storage requirements is achieved.

In some pattern contexts, there are patterns which must be anchored tothe head of the input stream (i.e. start at the beginning of the inputstream). Anchored patterns are only matched at the start of the inputstream. Patterns that are not anchored will be denoted as unanchoredpatterns. The pattern context compiler achieves better efficiency if theanchored patterns use one or more dedicated search engines. Each searchengine can be defined (by the PCH) as an anchored pattern search engine.An anchored pattern search engine uses an anchored idle flag in thesearch engine. The flag is cleared at the beginning of the matchoperation and the flag is set in the following conditions: (1) there isno rule match for a character of the stream; or (2) the rule's nextstate is “state invalid” (in one example embodiment it is coded by nextstate bit 0:1=b11).

When the anchored idle flag is set, the search engine does not reportany match and does not send any commands towards the LRP. The value ofthe anchored idle flag is kept in the search engine state in the stateblock. An alternative method to check anchored rules uses the globalposition offset counter in the LRP which can be used for checking a zerostart position. Both methods can be used for the beginning of streamanchored packets.

A pattern context might define a match which is valid only if the matchwas on the last byte of the stream. This type of pattern is referred toas an end of stream anchored pattern. The term anchored pattern (without“end of stream” prefix) is a pattern having a valid match only if thematching string starts at the first input byte. The application searchcommand at the input to the PMA cannot guarantee reporting on the lastcharacter of the stream. In some cases, the application knows that thelast byte was the end of the stream only after the last applicationsearch command was already sent. The LRP can report a match on the lastbyte of the application search command and set a flag in the matchreport to indicate that this is a valid match only if it was the lastbyte of the stream.

Some rules require a defined distance from the beginning of the stream.For example, if the following string is searched: “ . . . abc” theimplementation is to look for the string “abc” when the character “a” isat position 4 in the stream. Since the stream can be split acrossmultiple application search commands, a counter is used to count theglobal position offset inside the packet. There are two ways that theglobal position offset can be checked: (1) use of a dedicated GlobalOffset Register (GOR); and (2) use of the offset register (OFR) in theLRP.

A match can be reported in one of the following ways:

-   -   1. A result flag is set on the rule at the output of the search        engine rules matching and priority checking. The result flag can        be set either on the transition rule or on a default rule. This        method can report up to one match per character per search        engine.    -   2. The result is reported through the local result processor        (LRP) command initiated by the transition rule with the highest        priority match at the output of the search engine.    -   3. The result is reported through the local result processor        (LRP) command initiated by the default rule match at the output        of the search engine.

Note that, when a default rule produces an LRP command, that LRP commandis sent to the LRP even if a high-priority transition rule also matches.This allows the search engine to efficiently encode LRP commands thatmust be executed whenever a particular single character is encountered.Hence, a single search engine can generate two LRP commands for a singlecharacter: one from a matching transition rule, and one from a matchingdefault rule.

In one example embodiment, a total of three matches per character persearch engine can be reported, i.e. 12 matches per lane per character,however in alternative embodiments, any number of matches per charactercan be reported. When matches are expected to be rare the hardware canbe optimized assuming a low number of matches. For example, when thereare multiple matches per character, it indicates an input pipe may bestalled for few cycles to allow the match output results to be flushedfrom the lane back to the command unit.

A block diagram illustrating the result reporting and LRP interface isshown in FIG. 34. The winning rule 446 is selected from the transitionrule 442 checking line's winning rule 443 and the default rule checking444 line's winning rule 445. In the case of multiple matches percharacter, the lane connection to the SU might be overloaded and causeback pressure on the lane. In this case, the lane stops processing newcharacters until all matches are reported.

The local result processor (LRP) is connected to all one or more (e.g.,all four) search engines in a logical lane (there are thus two LRPs perphysical lane). Each search engine sends up to two commands per cyclefrom both the transition rule bank and the default rule bank: (1) onecommand as the output of the transition rule checking (highest prioritymatching transition rule); and (2) one command as the output of thedefault rule checking (highest priority matching default rule). Aplurality of LRP commands (e.g., eight) can be received by the LRP: onefrom each search engine transition rule; and one from each search enginedefault rule. All commands can use the same set of opcodes.

A command can have either one of two sources in the rule line. Thecommand is used only if there a match on the associated rule in theline.

1. Rule's Shared Command: This command is used if the shared commandvalid bit in the line's winning rule is set and the shared command is anLRP command. This command is associated with the rule when the sharedcommand valid bit in the rule is set.2. Rule's Extended Command: This command is associated with rule 0(Type=b01), with rule 1 (Type=b10), or with both rules (Type=b11). Ifthere is a valid LRP shared command, this extended rule is not executed.

Each command sent to the LRP is associated with the state of the searchengine (i.e. cluster ID, table ID, and state), and with the currentposition. This information is used by the LRP for match resultreporting.

The end match position is reported as the position of the currentcharacter when the match was found by the search engine in the stream.This information is transferred from the search engine to the LRP andfrom there, if there was a match, to the match reporting. The startmatch position can be reported for only some patterns due to the factthat for every potential match there can be multiple potential startmatch positions. Unlike the end match position, the start match positionis managed by the local result processor through the local resultprocessor command it receives from the rules. A rule can include acommand that tells the local result processor to keep the currentposition in the local result processor registers. Because a valid matchcan only be determined after all input characters have been processedthat make up a complete string that matches a given pattern, a latercommand triggered by the processing of the last character of a matchingstring will then point to one of those registers to provide the value ofthe start match position.

When processing related application search commands in chain mode thesearch state is loaded into the algorithm engine at the beginning ofmiddle and last application search command processing. The state is fromthe algorithm engine that was previously stored at the end of first andmiddle application search command processing. The state is kept in thestate block structure. The state block is a data structure located at anoffset from the status block pointer at the application search command.

Match results are reported through a set of entries in an output bufferpointed to by the application search command. The match report comprisesthe information from which the application software can identify thepattern that caused the match reporting and its position. In one exampleembodiment the following information is included in the match report:(1) the search command in the application search command (search command0 or search command 1); (2) match state or match character: When thematch is reported by a direct match report coming from the search engineor reported by an LRP match report from a transition rule, the reportedinformation about the search engine next state (from the winning ruleresult part) includes table ID (next table ID in the rule) and state(next state field of the rule); (3) when the match is reported by an LRPmatch report from a default rule, the reported information is thecharacter on which the match was found; (4) the end match position whichis the byte position in the input stream on which the pattern matchended; (5) optionally, the match report entry can hold additional validinformation in the “Local Result Processor Information” field. Thisinformation may comprise: The value of an LRP General Purpose Register(GPR), the value of an LRP Offset Register (OFR), this can be used forthe start match reporting as the byte offset from the point on which thematched string was started. A flag in the match reporting indicates ifthis field is valid; and (6) an immediate value from the rule line.

A finite number (e.g., 12) of match reports can be generated per searchcommand per character. Each search engine sends a match report if thewinning rule has a result flag set. Each search engine can also send upto two LRP commands that can cause a match reporting. Buffering isprovided to buffer match reports before sending them to the match resultbuffer in memory, as shown in FIG. 35. If the internal buffering fills,the lane will stall to allow time for it to empty. In the case of amatch port buffer overrun (the buffer 452 is located in main memory andis pointed to by the application search command 450) the applicationsearch command search operation is stopped and an output buffer overflowerror is reported through the status block. The application may increasethe size of the output buffer, and retry the search command. The totalnumber of match entries 454 placed in the output buffer (for both searchcommands of the application search command) is reported in the statusblock. In continuous mode of operation this number defines the totalnumber of matches for all the application search commands.

Regarding the dual hash, in alternative embodiments, a variety ofdifferent hash configurations can be implemented as described infra.Note that throughout FIGS. 36 to 39, the term ‘bank’ denotes a logicalbank as opposed to a physical bank. In addition, accesses may beperformed in parallel or in series to either separate or the samephysical rule memories.

A diagram illustrating an example base hash configuration is shown inFIG. 36. In this basic configuration, the hash T 470 is performed on thecurrent character and current state. The resulting hash T is used tolookup transition rules in transition rule bank 472. Similarly, the hashD 476 is performed on the current character. The resulting hash D isused to lookup default rules in default rule bank 474.

A diagram illustrating an example transition rule multi-hashconfiguration is shown in FIG. 37. In this configuration, a plurality ofhashes T1 480 through hash Tn 484 are performed on the current characterand current state. Hash T1 is used as a lookup to transition rule bank 1482, hash T2 is used as a lookup to transition rule bank 2, and so onthrough hash Tn which is used as a lookup to transition rule bank n 486.Each hash result is operative to output a transition rule. In thisconfiguration, only a single default hash, hash D 489, based on thecurrent character is used as a lookup for default rule bank 1 488 whichoutputs default rules.

A diagram illustrating an example default rule multi-hash configurationis shown in FIG. 38. In this configuration, a plurality of hashes D1 494through hash Dn 497 are performed on the current character. Hash D1 isused as a lookup to default rule bank 1 496, hash D2 is used as a lookupto default rule bank 2, and so on through hash Dn which is used as alookup to default rule bank n 498. Each hash result is operative tooutput a default rule. In this configuration, only a single transitionhash, hash T 492, based on the current character and current state, isused as a lookup for transition rule bank 1 490 which outputs transitionrules.

A diagram illustrating an example multi-hash configuration with defaultrule bank repurposing is shown in FIG. 39. In this configuration, a hashT 500 is performed on the current character and current state. Hash T isused as a lookup to transition rule bank 1 502 to output a transitionrule. A multi-hash TD 506, based on the current character and currentstate, is used as a lookup for multi-hash rules in default rule bank 1504 which outputs multi-hash rules (i.e. transition rules that are readfrom a default rule bank). It is possible, as a generalization, toperform transition rule multi-hash and default rule multi-hash anddefault rule bank repurposing in one embodiment.

In one embodiment, the search engine logic takes two cycles to process asingle character: an SRAM read cycle and a computation cycle. Everyphysical Lane has four search engines which are time multiplexed betweentwo logical lanes (meaning that the SRAM is read every cycle, everyother cycle per logical lane). With reference to FIGS. 22 and 40, theaddress generation by the previous character is fed to the SRAMs 360,362 in both banks. If it is a local rule, the selection is according tothe rule address. If the rule is a global rule, the SRAM selection isdone according to the tag 354 match results. The PCH 351 indicates whichbanks hold the transition rules and which banks hold the default rulesfor the specific PCH. Both banks can hold either transition or defaultrules.

The rule match and address generation logic, generally referenced 510,comprises a plurality of rule match circuits 512, one for each of threerules from both banks 0 and 1 (bank 0 rule #1, bank 0 rule #2, bank 0rule #3, bank 1 rule #1, bank 0 rule #2, bank 1 rule #3 for a total ofsix rule match circuits), select highest priority circuits 522, 524,address generators 526, 530, 534, dual hash on winning rule decisionblock 536 and multiplexers 528, 532, 538. Each rule match circuit 512comprises a class select block 514, compare block 516 and rule logic520. Accordingly, the test portion of bank 0, rule 1 is input to thebank 0 rule 1 match circuit; the test portion of bank 0, rule 2 is inputto the bank 0 rule 2 match circuit; the test portion of bank 0, rule 3is input to the bank 0 rule 3 match circuit. Similarly, the test portionof bank 1, rule 1 is input to the bank 1 rule 1 match circuit; the testportion of bank 1, rule 2 is input to the bank 1 rule 2 match circuit;and the test portion of bank 1, rule 3 is input to the bank 1 rule 3match circuit.

The data read from the SRAM banks is used by the search engine logicwhich functions to find the rule with the highest priority and togenerate the next rule address. The search engine logic also drives theLRP command of the winning rule to the LRP. The search engine logic isoperative to generate two addresses: one for the transition rule bank511 and the other for the default rule bank 513. The information fromthe PCH 351 controls an output multiplexer to send the transition ruleaddress and the default rule address to the appropriate bank.

The inputs to the rule logic 520 in each match circuit 512 comprisesinput character n, class of the input character (via class select 514),current state via current state register 539 and the test portions ofthe currently read rule. Each of the six rules (i.e. bank 0, rule 1through bank 1, rule 3) is input to an individual match circuit 512. Arule matches if both the character/class checking 516 and the statechecking 518 passed successfully.

The rule matching results outputs from the six match circuits 512 areinput to the select highest priority logical circuit 522. The rulespriority order is as follows:Transition_Rule0>Transition_Rule1>Transition_Rule2>Default_Rule0>Default_Rule1>Default_Rule2>Init.Rule. The PCH information input indicates whether the first three matchresults come from the default rules or the transition rules. The nextaddress is generated via blocks 526, 530 and the winning rule 515selects the correct address via multiplexers 528, 532. The transitionrule bank address 511 is generated using the winning rule next state andthe input character. The default rule bank address 513 may compriseeither a default address generated by the initial rule and the inputcharacter or a dual hash address generated from the next dual hash valueand the input character.

As described supra, the Local Result Processor (LRP) assists the basicoperation of the search engine to handle complex patterns. In anillustrative example shown in FIG. 41 consider the search engine lookingin parallel for matches of the regular-expression patterns “ab.*cd”(pattern 0) and “kl[̂\n]*pq” (pattern 1) in a given input stream withoutthe benefit of the LRP. The first pattern will match if the input streamcontains a string “ab” that is followed by a string “cd” with any numberof any type of characters in between. The latter is defined by the “.”metasymbol which matches any character value, followed by a quantifier“*” (also known as Kleene star or Kleene operator) meaning zero or morematches on the associated character, in this case the metasymbol “.”.

The second pattern will match if the input stream contains a string “kl”that is followed by a string “pq” with any number of any type ofcharacters in between except for a newline symbol, as is defined by thecharacter class “[̂\n]” which corresponds to any character value that isnot a newline symbol (\n) followed by a Kleene star.

FIG. 41 illustrates a state diagram that is generated for the abovepattern matching function for the case that no LRP is used. Note thatthe diagram in FIG. 41 is simplified for illustrative purposes, by notshowing the initial rule and by showing the default rules as transitionrules for the initial state S0.

FIG. 42 shows a state diagram that is generated for the case that an LRPconstructed in accordance with the present invention is used. FIG. 42 isalso simplified by not showing the initial rule and by showing thedefault rules as transition rules for the initial state S0. In thiscase, the subpatterns in the above two patterns, namely “ab”, “cd”, “kl”and “pq” are all searched independently of each other.

Upon detection of “ab” a set instruction is issued to the LRP that willset a bit in one of the registers in the register file of the LRP atposition b0. Similarly, upon detection of “kl” a set instruction isissued to the LRP that will set a bit in a register at position b4. Notethat these bits are allocated by the compiler and are in this caseselected in an arbitrary way for illustrative purposes only. Upondetection of “cd” the bit at position b0 is tested and if set, a matchreport instruction is issued to report a match on pattern 0. Thiscorresponds to the above definition of pattern 0. Similarly, upondetection of “pq” the bit at position b4 is tested and if set, a matchreport instruction is issued to report a match on pattern 1.

As shown in FIG. 42, the detection of a newline character (\n) in theinput stream will trigger a reset instruction on bit b4. Consequently, amatch on pattern 1 will only be reported if “kl” has been detected(which will result in bit b4 being set) not followed by a newline symbol(\n) (if detected, it would have reset bit b4), followed by “pq” (whichwill trigger the match report if bit b4 is still set). Note that inFIGS. 41 and 42, the state transitions originating in state S0 aredefault rules and the remaining transitions are transition rules. As canbe seen from this example, use of the LRP results in a substantialreduction of the number of states and transition rules for wildcardpatterns: the state diagram in FIG. 42 is significantly smaller than theone in FIG. 41.

A simplified block diagram illustrating the LRP in more detail is shownin FIG. 43. The LRP, generally referenced 540, comprises a plurality ofcommand decode circuits 544 (eight in this example embodiment) operativeto receive corresponding commands 542 from the search engines and aregister file 546 including general purpose registers 541, offsetcounter registers 543 and global offset registers 545. In oneembodiment, the LRP is implemented as a set of registers 546 that aremodified by commands sent from the search engines. There are two LRPsper physical lane, one for each logical lane. The LRP is structured as aprocessor (i.e. command/decode circuits) coupled to the set of registers542 that receive commands from the search engines. One or more commandsmay be sent from the search engines to the LRP per character. The LRPcan process the commands in a single clock cycle (the time required bythe search engine to process a character).

In the example embodiment, the LRP comprises eight command decode (CD)circuits that operate in parallel. All command decode units receive theregister file 546 as input for condition checking. Each command decodegenerates three bitwise register command operations, “Shift”, “Reset”and “Set”, for the target register.

The register file gathers the three register command bit vectors fromeach command decode circuit and performs a combined operation on theregister. The LRP register file 546 comprises a plurality of generalpurpose registers (GPR) 541, a plurality of offset counter registers(OFR) 543 are used to hold temporary storage of the character positionoffset values.

The Offset Registers (OFR) comprise a plurality of free running counters(i.e. incremented every new character processed by the lane). In theexample embodiment, OFRs are saturating and stop counting at 0xFFFF anddo not wrap over. A special LRP command resets (to 0x0000) the OFR tostart offset counting from a specified location. This is used to findthe distance from the beginning of a match. The content of one OFR canbe added to a match report. Software can then find the start positionusing the match position and the offset from the start position. Notethat the match position is an offset local to the current applicationsearch command. In contrast, the offset reported by an OFR can refer toa start match position either in the current application search commandinput data or in earlier application search command's input buffer.

The Global Offset Register (GOR) is initialized to zero (0x00) at thebeginning of a scan for a single mode packet and at the first packet ofa continuous mode. The value of the GOR holds the global offset from thebeginning of the search GOR=0 at the first byte of the search and isincremented for every new character processed by the lane. When the GORreaches its maximal value of 0xFF it keeps the value unchanged until theend of the search. The GOR value is used as a condition in some of theLRP opcodes.

The LRP command can be used for the following type of operations: (1)OFR operation (e.g., reset OFR); (2) GPR operation (e.g., load, set,reset, shift, increment and decrement commands); (3) match reporting(e.g., report match with current state only, report match with currentstate and selected GPR (i.e. the value prior to current characterselecting), report match with current state and selected OFR (i.e. theoffset of the current character (the value prior to current characterselecting), report match with current state and immediate data (from theLRP command).

The same GPR can be controlled by multiple instructions. The next valueof each bit in the target register is defined by a defined prioritywhich is calculated per bit. If there is more than one command affectinga bit in a register, the priority of the operation is as follows (fromlowest priority to highest priority): (1) increment; (2) shift; (3)reset; and (4) set.

A short command comes from the rule shared command and allows sending acommand to the LRP while having three rules in the line. Short commandopcodes function to save rule space when full command opcodes are notneeded.

The condition in a conditional command checks the relations between avector of an immediate byte in the command and a specified byte in oneof the GPRs. The condition can be one of the following types: (1) nocondition; (2) the selected byte has all set bits in common withcondition vector; (3) the selected byte has at least one set bit incommon with condition vector; and (4) the selected byte equals thecondition vector. A load operation is operative to load an immediatevalue into a selected general purpose register (GPR)

The LRP command can report a match. The match state reported is the nextstate of the search engine that initiated the LRP command. The followingmatch options are provided: (1) match if a specified GPR bit is set; (2)match with no condition; (3) match if end-of-stream; and (4) match ifcondition met (=/=</>) on the value of the global offset register (GOR).

A set command allows a single bit or a vector to be set in a selectedGPR. If the target bit is already set, this operation keeps the value ofthe bit unchanged. A reset command resets a single bit or a vector in aselected GPR. A shift command shifts a single bit or a vector in aselected GPR. There are two types of multi-register reset: (1) GPRmulti-register reset (resets the selected general purpose registers(GPR)); and (2) OFR multi-register reset (resets the selected offsetregisters (OFR)). An increment command (also referred to as a countcommand), adds one to the value defined in a bit field in the definedGPR. A decrement command subtracts one from the value defined in a bitfield in the defined GPR.

As described supra, the LRP enables complex pattern matching to beperformed in hardware when the alternative is to send multiple partialmatches to the software for further processing. A disadvantage ofsending multiple partial searches to the software is the increased loadplaced on the software processing and the increased number of reportedmatches, which thwarts the goal of simplifying the match reporting logicassuming a low match reporting rate.

The Software Result Processor (SRP) is used for complicated patternsearch cases that are beyond the capabilities of the LRP. Thesecapability limitations might relate, for example, to the type ofprocessing (instructions) that the LRP supports, or to the amount ofinformation that can be stored within the GPRs. In this case, the LRPwrites additional information in the match reports, for example, thecontents of a GPR or OFR selected by a match report instruction, orimmediate data that is contained in a match report instruction. Thisadditional information can then be further processed by the SRP todetermine if a pattern match has been found in the input stream.

Upload Manager Interface

The PMA provides application search commands that are used by the uploadmanager to control the operation of the PMA. The commands are used forthe initialization, monitoring and dynamic updates of the PMA internaldata structures, and include: (1) Sync. Command (ensures that all priorupload manager commands have been completed); (2) Commands to write thePCH, GLAT, local rule area and classifier (loads new contexts, and makerules local); (3) Flush Temporary Rules Command (makes the temporaryarea coherent after rule modification, and remove unloaded rules fromthe temporary area); (4) Search Engine Performance Monitor Read Command(retrieves statistical profiles of rule access patterns); and (5) SearchEngine Performance Monitor Write Command (controls what statistics aretaken for determining local rule sets).

There are seven control commands that are used by the upload manager tocontrol the operation of the PMA algorithm engine (AE): (1) Sync.Command (checks that all previous commands in the pipe were completed);(2) Write PCH Command (updates an entry in the PCH table withinformation embedded in the application search command); (3) Write GLATCommand (updates the GLAT table with information embedded in theapplication search command); (4) Load Cluster Command (loads a rulecluster into one of the search engine local memories); (5) LoadClassifier Command (loads a single classifier table, or part of it, intoa single lane); (6) Flush Temporary Rules Command (flushes, i.e.invalidates, the cache of one or more banks of the search enginetemporary rule area); (7) Search Engine Performance Monitor Read Command(dumps the content of the PMA internal search engine performance counterarray to the defined location in main memory); and (8) Search EnginePerformance Monitor Write Command (loads the contents of the PMAinternal search engine performance counter array from a defined locationin main memory). These commands are used for the initialization,monitoring and dynamic updating of the PMA internal data structure. TheFlush and the Sync. Command do not move any data. The Search EnginePerformance Monitor Command moves data from PMA to the main memory. Theremaining commands move data between main memory and PMA internal datastructures.

Upload manager command processing completes when a status block iswritten back to memory. In addition, hardware may assert an interrupttowards the processor; write a flag to memory, or any other suitablecompletion notification.

Search Engine Performance Monitoring

The search engine performance monitoring system comprises a statisticalsampling mechanism that is, in one example embodiment, configured,initialized and read using upload manager application search commands.The system collects statistical profile information at multiple levelsof resolution including: (1) which currently loaded contexts arefrequently accessed; (2) which tables within particular contexts arefrequently accessed; (3) which chunks within particular tables arefrequently accessed, etc. It may also be beneficial to collectstatistical profiles of other behaviors, such as (1) which states withina table are frequently accessed; (2) which rule lines or cache blockswithin a table are frequently accessed; and/or (3) sequencing ofaccesses such as which state is commonly accessed following a givenstate.

The search engine performance counters collect statistical profiles ofsearch engine activity that are used by the upload manager to determinewhich rules should be placed in the local area. Samples of the activestates in the search engines are gathered by the search engines and sentto a performance monitoring unit 268 (FIG. 14) inside the PMA. Thesampled states are processed based on the current configuration and, asa result of the processing, one or more counters may be incremented.

As shown in FIG. 44, within each lane 550, each search engine generatestwo sample records, one for bank #0 552 and one for bank #1 554. Eachsample record comprises fields such as valid indication, rule read,hit/miss indication, bank, lane, search engine, group ID, global/localindication, table ID, mask and state. Each search engine produces amaximum of two records every fast clock. The sampling reduces this toone record every other slow clock across all search engines, greatlysimplifying the performance monitor unit while still providingsufficient statistical accuracy and collection speed. In the exampleembodiment presented herein, each of the 16 logical search engines sendstwo samples every sample cycle, i.e. there are 32 sources of the samplerecord. The samples are multiplexed 556 and first written to a samplelatch 562 and then an output latch 564, controlled by control block 560.Linear feedback shift register (LFSR) provides a randomized output whichserves as the latch enable to the sample latch 562.

A shown in FIG. 45, each of the lanes 572, 574, 576, 578, comprisingsearch engines 579, sends the records in a cyclic order: Lane[0],Lane[1], Lane[2], Lane[3]. Each lane 572, 574, 576, 578 sends a singlesample at a time to its corresponding multiplexer 580, 582, 584, 586,respectively. The sample records are gathered in round robin fashionfrom the search engines through a shared search engine performancemonitor record sample bus. The search engines inside the lane aresampled in the following order: SE[0] bank[0], SE[1] bank[0], SE[2]bank[0], SE[3] bank[0], SE[0] bank[1], SE[1] bank[1], SE[2], bank[1],SE[3] bank[1]. It is appreciated that different sampling is possible aswell.

A lane samples the next search engine pseudo randomly one to sixteencycles (or any other range) after the previous sample. The sample istaken regardless whether the search engine is in an idle, initial oractive state. When the search engine is idle (not processing acharacter) the sample is marked as invalid.

An idle search engine sends a sample record with its search engine andlane information but with a clear valid bit. A pseudorandom function isgenerated that increments every sample once in 16 cycles using the fourleast significant bits of the following LFSR function: x⁹+x⁵+1. Notethat other LFSR functions may also be used. The sample records arecollected round robin fashion via multiplexer 588 from all the lanes andsent to the search engine performance counters in the upload managerhandler logic.

As shown in FIG. 46, two counter banks, counter bank #0 592 and counterbank #1 594, both check each sample record. The sample records arecollected from the lanes, and sent to the counter logic and written tolatch 596. A selected valid sample record is sent to both counter banks.If the sample record valid bit is not set, the sample is dropped.

As shown in FIG. 47, the sample record passes through a programmablehash function 606. The output of the hash function is an address to acounter array 608. The sample records from the search engine are alsoinput to a hash register 602. The output of the hash register is inputto the programmable hash function 606. Each counter entry comprises twoparts: (1) the reference sample record 624; and (2) the counter itself626. The sample record and the reference sample record are masked usingthe mask registers 614, 616 and compared. Mask register 0 is used forthe masking of counter 0 in counter bank and mask register 1 is used formasking of counter 1 in the counter bank.

If there is a match, the counter is incremented unless the counter hasreached its terminal count or the counters have been frozen. Allcounters can be frozen if one of the counters reaches its terminalcount. This allows the upload manager to obtain accurate relativeprofiles in the event that one counter saturates.

The sample record value is processed in a programmable hash function 606to generate the counter's address in the counter array 608. The hashfunction used may comprise any suitable hash function depending on theparticular implementation. In one example embodiment, each bit of thearray address is selected from one of the bits in the sample record asdefined in a hash register. Each counter array stores a plurality oflines. Each array line stores two counters processed in parallel. Thereis a separate mask for each counter. The bits in the reference samplerecord (i.e. from the array) and the search engine sample recordcorresponding to the set mask bits are compared 618. Following a matchon all the compared bits, the counter is incremented 622. Note that amatch and increment may occur on one, both or neither of the counters.

Preferably, the upload manager initializes the counter entries (samerecords reference field, mask select field, and counter field). Theupload manager builds data structure in memory with the required contentof the performance counter and sends a Write Search Engine PerformanceMonitor command using a dedicated upload manager application searchcommand. The Store Search Engine Performance Monitor command applicationsearch command copies the performance counter from the PMA to mainmemory. The upload manager monitors the operation of the performancecounters by reading the Performance Monitor Status register. Thisregister holds information about the number of events and the state ofthe counters.

Note that the performance monitoring system may also be used to providefeedback to the search application for the purpose of monitoring,tuning, understanding or improving application performance and behavior.This may be done either using the information already collected by theupload manager, or by performing application-specific profiling usingthe performance counters.

Local Rule Area Management

With reference to FIGS. 48-50, as described supra, the upload manager(UM) functions to manage the local rule area. For optimum performance,rules which are frequently accessed are placed in the local rule area.To achieve this, the upload manager software performs three basic tasks:(1) profiling (step 630); (2) placement (step 634), if profileinformation changed (step 632); and (3) rule upload and modification(step 638), if placement is significantly improved (step 636). Inprofiling, the upload manager uses the search engine performance monitorsystem to determine which rules are frequently accessed. With placement,given a statistical profile, the upload manager determines which rulesshould be placed in the local area and where they should be placed. Theplacement must be legal, following inherent constraints, such as notplacing multiple rules in the same location and other constraintsimposed by hardware limitations. With rule upload and modification, theupload manager uploads rules to the local rule area. Those rulestargeting uploaded rules must be modified to reference the local rulesin their new location.

In an alternative embodiment, a predefined profile is used that permitsthe upload manager to perform a ‘warm’ start whereby the PMA hardware isloaded with an approximated or estimated setting or configurationinformation. This is in contrast to a ‘cold’ start whereby the uploadmanager initially has no knowledge whatsoever about the nature of thesystem. In the cold start case, the PMA begins running using only thehardware managed cache (default rules cache) until the upload managercollects statistics and updates the rules in the local memory (softwaremanaged cache or local rules cache).

The predefined profile may be developed using heuristics, for instancedefault tables are typically accessed frequently, or may be developedusing off-line profiling, for instance during search applicationdevelopment. It is also possible to use multiple strategies. Forinstance, on-line profiling can be used to determine which contexts arefrequently accessed, while predefined profiles are used to estimatewhich tables and chunks within the tables are frequently accessed. Inaddition, predefined profiles can be used until the upload manager hassufficient time to collect on-line profiles.

In the example embodiment presented herein, the statistical profile iscollected by a hardware profile mechanism. Alternatively, profileinformation can be collected using software mechanisms, possibly withhigher run-time overhead. For instance, profiles of which contexts arefrequently accessed can be developed by the application search API asthe application submits search commands.

The goal of profiling is to determine which rules are accessed mostfrequently. As a first step, profile prioritization is performed (step640). The hardware profiler is configured (or alternatively a softwareprofiler) (step 642). An “access” is one rule look-up required by onesearch engine to search a character. The profiling method then waits forsufficient data (step 644) to collect profile information (step 646).Each search engine may perform one or more (e.g., up to two) accessesper character searched, one or more on the transition rule bank and oneor more on the default rule bank. The upload manager gathers profileinformation at three levels of resolution: (1) context level (of allcontexts loaded, which ones are frequently accessed); (2) table level(for each search engine in a context, which of the tables in that searchengine are frequently accessed; and (3) chunk level (for each table,which chunks within that table are frequently accessed).

Data is collected and maintained at each of these three levels. Theaccess frequency for a particular chunk is the multiple of the contextaccess frequency, the table frequency within that context and the chunkaccess frequency within that table. The counters are configured andinformation is collected over the duration of a search, called a “pass”.The duration of a pass is preferably based on characters searched and/orcounts profiled rather than real time. Multiple passes are typicallyrequired to collect all possible information. This process occurscontinuously with new passes typically replacing prior data using anexponential decay.

The search engine performance monitor can be configured to collect eachlevel as follows: (1) context level (group IDs correspond roughly tocontexts) with the hash function is used to select low-order group IDs;(2) table level (the hash function is used to select the table IDs); (3)chunk level (the record contains the upper two mask bits and state bitswhich are sufficient to determine which chunks an accessed state couldaccess. Other combinations of hash function, mask and comparison arealso possible, and the upload manager may use multiple variants tooptimize the collection processes.

In one embodiment, the performance monitor unit comprises twoindependent banks.

The upload manager may configure the banks independently for differenttasks. The search engine performance monitor receives both local andglobal accesses. In general, locked contexts are profiled in both lockedand unlocked forms. The resulting samples are combined after collectioneither in hardware or software (e.g., the upload manager).

Each level of resolution involves collection of more information thanthe previous level. Since the search engine performance monitor has afixed number of counters, it takes more passes, and therefore more time,to collect information at higher levels of resolution. The uploadmanager determines which information is most important to collect at anygiven time using any suitable mechanism. Each level is also lesssignificant in terms of optimization of the placement. For example, itis more important to know which contexts are being used frequently, thanwhich chunks within each table are frequently used.

Thus, upload manager utilizes a prioritization strategy. It firstdecides which level of information it will collect on each counter bank,prioritizes information at that level and then maps as much highpriority information as possible onto that bank. The following generalguidelines determine priority within a resolution: (1) more out-of-datedata is more important to profile than recently profiled data; and (2)more frequently accessed groups/tables are more important to profilethan rarely accessed groups/tables.

There are four basic steps to the placement algorithm, including: (1)replication (step 650); (2) initial guess (step 652); (3) physical lane,search engine and bank selection (step 654); and (4) physical tableselection and placement (step 656). Replication involves determining howmany replicated copies (i.e. placing the rules for the same PCH in morethan one lane) to make for each context, to ensure proper load balancingacross multiple physical lanes. Frequently used contexts are replicated;rarely used contexts are not. The initial approximation makes an initialestimate of how much locked space each compiled context, search engineand bank will need. This is used to avoid placing two compiled banksthat both need a lot of space on the same physical bank in the nextstep. Physical lane, search engine and bank selection are based on theinitial guess, for each compiled pattern context wherein the uploadmanager selects the physical lane(s), physical search engine andphysical banks. This is done to: (1) balance “space pressure” across thelocked area, i.e. attempt to avoid placing too many frequently used or“large” compiled banks on the same physical bank; and (2) balance“load”, the fraction of characters scanned, across the multiple physicallanes, i.e. avoid a situation where excessive scans are sent to one ormore physical lanes, leaving other physical lanes underutilized.Regarding, physical table selection, at this point, for every compiledtable, the associated physical lane(s) and bank has been selected. Thebank (or banks for replicated contexts) where each compiled table couldbe placed have been determined during the previous step. The algorithmattempts to pack as many compiled chunks into each bank, so as tomaximize the characters “covered” (processed via local rules) for thatbank.

If a context is heavily used, performance is optimized by storingmultiple copies of the pattern context on different physical lanes, inorder to obtain higher bandwidth for that context. The simple genericalgorithm is just to divide (using a parameterized divider value) thefraction of characters searched by that context by a constant. This isthe number of copies of each context that will be placed.

The initial guess portion of the algorithm estimates how much space willbe locked for every compiled pattern context, search engine and bank.This information is used in the next step, physical bank selection. Theestimation algorithm will greedily “place” tables as long as noconstraint prevents them from being placed. This initial guess may beoverturned either way by the final placement algorithm. Tables that theinitial guess determined would be locked may not be locked, and tablesthat the initial guess determined would not be locked may be locked. Thefirst part of the algorithm produces a priority sorted list of allcompiled tables. The sort order is based on: Access Density=(TableAccesses)/(Table Size), where access density denotes accesses to thetable per byte of storage required. The goal is to maximize the accessesper byte of local rule area. Hence, frequently accesses tables andsmaller tables are locked first.

The initial guess produces an estimate of the locked size of eachcompiled pattern context, search engine and bank. Physical bankselection uses this information to map contexts, compiled search enginesand compiled banks onto physical lanes, physical search engines andphysical banks. The algorithm balances two competing goals: (1) balancethe scan load across the physical lanes; and (2) balance the spacedemand across the physical banks.

The outer loop of the algorithm goes through each context, starting withthe most frequently used contexts. The algorithm computes two costs foreach possible physical lane (or combination of physical lanes forreplicated contexts): (1) a load balance cost, which estimates the costof imbalanced scan load across the physical lanes; and (2) a space cost,which estimates the space pressure on the search engine banks. Since thecompiled search engine banks can be mapped onto the physical searchengines in a variety of ways, the algorithm tries all the combinationsand selects the mapping with the smallest space cost. It performs aweighted sum of the two costs, and picks the physical lane with thesmallest total cost. The cost functions are based on n-squared measureswhich will try to produce balanced space and scan loading.

After physical bank selection, the physical lane, search engine and bankfor every compiled context, search engine and bank has been determined.This implies that the target physical bank for every compiled table isknown. This final phase selects actual locations for every locked table.This algorithm starts by producing a sort-list of tables to lock,essentially identical to the sort list produced by the initial guesswhereby tables are locked in this order. The placement algorithmoperates by finding a spot where a table fits. The “goodness” (oroptimality) of a particular place for a table is based on trying to keepas many large contiguous free regions as possible. The n-squared typemeasure is used again. In addition, free space at the beginning of atable is especially valuable as some tables cannot be shifted at all.

First, if any part of the table has been previously placed, it must beremoved, or it might interfere with further placement. Next, thealgorithm attempts to find a place for the table, given the priorplacement of all the other tables on the bank. If this succeeds, thealgorithm moves on to the next table in sorted order.

If not, a “relayout” is invoked. A relayout involves pulling all thepreviously locked tables off of the bank, and replacing them, and thenew table, back on the bank in a more optimal order. In packing problemsgenerally, it is more efficient to pack the large objects first, andthen try to fit the small objects around them. The access-densitypriority described supra, however, attempts to place small tables first.Hence, relayout uses a different priority order based only on size, notaccess frequency. The relayout succeeds if all the currently placedtables and the new one, are placed successfully. If the relayout doesnot succeed everything is put back where it was previously and the tableis not locked.

The size measure is based on: (1) the number of rows in the table/chunkmask being placed; (2) the minimum shift amount (larger minimum shiftamounts make the table harder to place); and (3) the number of duplicatecopies of the table (context), wherein more duplicates make the tableharder to place.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. Asused herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended toinclude the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicatesotherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises”and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify thepresence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements,and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of oneor more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements,components, and/or groups thereof.

The corresponding structures, materials, acts, and equivalents of allmeans or step plus function elements in the claims below are intended toinclude any structure, material, or act for performing the function incombination with other claimed elements as specifically claimed. Thedescription of the present invention has been presented for purposes ofillustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive orlimited to the invention in the form disclosed. As numerousmodifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in theart, it is intended that the invention not be limited to the limitednumber of embodiments described herein. Accordingly, it will beappreciated that all suitable variations, modifications and equivalentsmay be resorted to, falling within the spirit and scope of the presentinvention. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to bestexplain the principles of the invention and the practical application,and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand theinvention for various embodiments with various modifications as aresuited to the particular use contemplated.

It is intended that the appended claims cover all such features andadvantages of the invention that fall within the spirit and scope of thepresent invention. As numerous modifications and changes will readilyoccur to those skilled in the art, it is intended that the invention notbe limited to the limited number of embodiments described herein.Accordingly, it will be appreciated that all suitable variations,modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within thespirit and scope of the present invention.

1. An algorithm engine for searching pattern contexts in an inputcharacter stream, comprising: control logic operative to receive patterncontext search commands from a data engine; one or more physical patternsearch lanes, each physical pattern search lane comprising one or morepattern search engines, pattern search engine operative to execute saidpattern context search commands; and a local results processor (LRP)associated with each pattern search lane for assisting said patternsearch engines in searching complex pattern contexts.
 2. The apparatusaccording to claim 1, further comprising one or more classifiers, eachoperative to generate a class value associated with each input characterto be scanned by said one or more pattern search engines.
 3. Theapparatus according to claim 2, further comprising means for switchingfrom one classifier table to another.
 4. The apparatus according toclaim 1, wherein each physical pattern search lane comprises a pluralityof logical pattern search lanes.
 5. The apparatus according to claim 4,wherein each logical pattern search lane executes a pattern contextsearch command independent of other logical pattern search lanes.
 6. Theapparatus according to claim 4, wherein one LRP is associated with eachlogical pattern search lane and is operative to receive a set ofcommands from said pattern search engine on partial matches during asearch operation, analyze the complete match results for said searchoperation thereby assisting the corresponding logical pattern searchlane to process complex regular expression pattern contexts.
 7. Theapparatus according to claim 1, wherein each physical pattern searchlane comprises a classifier table and a plurality of pattern searchengines.
 8. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said patternsearch engine comprises a programmable state machine operative togenerate a new state after each new input character that is part of apattern context to be searched.
 9. The apparatus according to claim 8,wherein said state machine generates a state machine transition ruleaddress after each new input character whereby the new rule generates anew state which enables the calculation of a next address in the patterncontext search execution.
 10. The apparatus according to claim 1,further comprising means for saving and restoring a state associatedwith a physical pattern search lane.
 11. The apparatus according toclaim 10, wherein said means is operative to save and restore a state ofa pattern search engine.
 12. The apparatus according to claim 10,wherein said means is operative to save and restore a state of said LRP.13. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising a matchreporting circuit operative to write a matching rule state and currentposition of the input character stream to an output buffer upondetection of a pattern context match.
 14. The apparatus according toclaim 1, further comprising an output circuit operative to return tosaid data engine search results comprising an indication that executionof a pattern context command is complete and a list of all matchesfound.
 15. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising anoutput circuit operative to return to said data engine the current stateof one or more pattern search engines.
 16. The apparatus according toclaim 1, wherein each pattern search engine is coupled to a plurality ofrule bank memory caches, each operative to store both resident rules andtemporary rules.
 17. The apparatus according to claim 16, wherein saidresident rules are loaded and managed by a software based upload managerand said temporary rules are loaded and managed by a hardware rulescache manager.
 18. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein saidcontrol logic enables communications between said data engine and saidone or more physical pattern search lanes through an interconnect. 19.The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising means forswitching a physical pattern search lane from one scan to another in theevent scan stalls.
 20. An algorithm engine for searching patterncontexts in an input character stream, comprising: a plurality ofphysical pattern search lanes, each physical pattern search lanecomprising: control logic operative to receive pattern context searchcommands and state information from a command unit; a classifieroperative to generate a class value associated with each input characterto be scanned; a plurality of pattern search engines, each patternsearch engine coupled to dual rules bank caches for storing search rulesand operative to execute said pattern context search commands; a localresults processor (LRP) operative to receive commands from a patternsearch engine to analyze and process partial matches during a searchoperation thereby assisting said pattern search engines in searchingcomplex regular expression pattern contexts; and wherein each physicalpattern search lane is split into two logical pattern search lanes, eachlogical pattern search lane operative to execute a search commandreceived from a command unit.
 21. The apparatus according to claim 20,wherein each LRP is associated with a logical pattern search lane. 22.The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein said dual rules bank cachescomprises a software managed cache for storing resident rules and ahardware managed cache for storing temporary rules.
 23. The apparatusaccording to claim 20, further comprising an output circuit operative toreturn to said control unit search results comprising an indication thatexecution of a pattern context command is complete and a list of allmatches found.
 24. The apparatus according to claim 20, wherein eachsaid pattern search engine comprises a programmable state machineoperative to generate a new state after each new input character that ispart of a pattern context to be searched.
 25. The apparatus according toclaim 24, wherein said state machine generates a state machinetransition rule address after each new input character whereby the newrule generates a new state which enables the calculation of a nextaddress in the execution of said pattern context search.
 26. A method ofsearching for patterns in an input character stream, comprising:receiving pattern context search commands from a data engine and storingrules compiled therefrom in rule memory banks; executing said patterncontext search commands from said rule memory banks on a plurality ofpattern search engines organized into a plurality of pattern searchlanes; and providing a local results processor (LRP) associated witheach pattern search lane for assisting said pattern search engines insearching complex pattern contexts.
 27. The method according to claim26, further comprising selecting pattern search lanes, pattern searchengines and rule memory banks for rules uploading so as to balance theprocessing load across said pattern search lanes.
 28. The methodaccording to claim 26, further comprising selecting pattern searchlanes, search engines and rule memory banks for rules uploading so as tobalance the memory space demand across said rule memory banks.
 29. Themethod according to claim 26, further comprising updating the rules in apattern search lane while said pattern search lane is processing asearch command.